You know what’s counterproductive? Trying to make satire disappear on the Internet because you’re offended by it.
Here’s a chart of my blog hits over the last two days:
Over 12,700 hits just today, and rising. In addition to the 7,000 hits yesterday.
By pitching a hissy fit and insisting my Locus April Fools piece be taken down, the failfandom brigade only ensured that it would be seen by 20 times as many people as would have seen it otherwise.
Emphasis on the “fail.”
In an effort to prove that they’re not dour, humorless, thin-skinned avatars of political correctness with authoritarian tendencies, Wiscon’s Feminist failfandom brigade had my contribution to Locus Online’s April Fools Day festivities taken down. (Note that, under the transparent pseudonym of L. Ron Creepweans, I’ve participated in every Locus online April Fools Day since 2002.)
Locus forced Locus Online editor Mark Kelly to pull the piece only a few hours after it went up.
Thanks to the magic of Internet caches, you can still read it in its entirety:
And the text:
Today the SF3 ruling committee for the Madison, Wisconsin-based feminist SF convention WisCon announced that starting this year, all attendees would be required to wear burqas.
“We were trying to think of what we could do to make Wiscon more inclusive,” said con chair Belle Gunness. “Suddenly, we realized that devout Muslims could easily be offended by the amount of sinful and wanton flesh on display at Wiscon. Therefore, starting with this year’s Wiscon, we’ve made burqas mandatory for all attendees. Allah Akbar!”
Both male and female members will be required to don the traditional black, face-covering, head-to-toe Islamic garb for all convention events. Gunness indicated that the convention would have substantial quantities of Burqas for rental to congoers, from Small to 5XL sizes. As an added benefit, she said that the new regulations would help eliminate “rampant lookism.”
Gunness said that guests would be required to wear the garb as well, “in the spirit of egalitarianism.”
Wiscon also announced that next year’s guest lineup would consist of J. K. Rowling, Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, Joss Whedon and Suzanne Collins. “At least as far as you know.”
For those tuning in for the first time, this was a direct jab (in humorous form) at WisCon’s previous decision to yank their Guest-of-Honor invitation to Elizabeth Moon for daring to voice (in the mildest possible form) politically incorrect thoughts about certain aspects of modern Islam.
How radical Islam became so sacred to radical feminists is a topic for another time, and I have hamburgers to cook. But it’s sad to think how a tiny, unimportant, radical fringe of disgruntled feminists (so aptly dubbed “Failfandom” by Steven Francis Murphy) have not only come to believe that their right not to be offended trumps the free speech of others, but that other people in the SF community have come to cave into their petulant demands. (Whatever happened to “The solution to free speech is more free speech?” It seems that fewer and fewer people on the left side of the political aisle believe that any more.)
But if there objective was to get this piece to disappear down the memory hole, I think they shall find that they are sadly mistaken…
175 days after it started, there’s still no resolution to the Iowahawk hostage crises, with the web pundit still held in captivity by the leftwing Al-Bama Dignity Brigade terrorist group.
“No more shall the infidel insult our prophet (peace be upon him) or make fun our sacred texts!”
Al-Bama has held Iowahawk captive “somewhere in the greater Des Moines area” since October 9, 2012, when a daring midnight raid snatched him from his fortified garage compound. Since then nothing has been heard from the beloved pundit except occasional tweets and pictures of hot rods.
The terrorist group has repeatedly threatened to kill the pundit, sending various media outlets severed piston rods from a 1931 Ford Model A to prove their seriousness.
Police promises to find the pundit (“Yeah, we’ll get right on that,” said a spokesman who asked not to be identified or disturbed while the NCAA basketball tournament was on) have thus far been fruitless.
Al-Bama’s initial demands were for the immediate imposition of comprehensive gun control, universal socialized medicine, $10 million in ransom, and the public flogging of radio personality Rush Limbaugh. When these demands were not met, Al-Bama gradually reduced them. Their most recent demands were for $325, a public apology from Bill O’Riley “for living,” and 12 cases of Olde Main beer.
Those with information on Iowahawk’s current whereabouts are urged to contact the National Bloggers Club.
So North Korea is kicking its Crazy Invalid act up a notch with Kim Jong-Un threatening to attack the United States.
Which part of the U.S., you asking?
Dude, we’re all pissed off about the bag ban and the high cost of SXSW badges, but that’s a major overreaction.
Here, apropos of nothing in particular, is a video about the B-52:
And here, also apropos of nothing in particular, is a video of a B-2 hitting targets with 80 500 pound JDAM bombs.
Texas House District 52 Representative Larry Gonzalez announced today that he’s inviting gun manufacturers from around the country to relocate to his district.
“Recently, you received correspondence from our Texas Governor, Rick Perry, inviting you to consider moving your company to Texas – a pro-gun, pro-2nd amendment, pro-business, right to work state,” says the opening line of the letter. The letter continues, “Texas has created an economic infrastructure which allows business to thrive. We understand government’s role is to get out of the way of private business and allow them to do what they do best – create jobs and help build our economy.”
“My pitch was specifically for the cities within House District 52,” said Gonzales. “I feel many variables make the cities of Round Rock, Hutto and Taylor very attractive places to locate a company. Chief among them is our roadway infrastructure. Our mobility is the envy of this state.”
You might remember that I’ve suggested something of the sort before at the state level…
Nurse Bloomberg proposes the Mafia Fulltime Employment Through Cigarette Smuggling Act (though I think he’s offering it up under another name) to raise the price of cigarettes to $10.50 a pack. (Hat tip: Dwight)
And how well is that likely to work? “New York currently holds the top position as the highest net importer of smuggled cigarettes in 2011, with smuggled cigarettes totaling a staggering 60.9 percent of the total market. Not coincidentally, New York also has the nation’s highest state cigarette tax.”
You would think even Nanny State advocates might have learned from the example of Prohibition, but obviously not. It’s like Bloomberg watched The Untouchables and went “Hey, Al Capone! I bet I can boost that guy’s profits through the roof!” That is, when the smuggling isn’t funding jihad.
If Bloomberg is successful in getting this enacted, cigarette vendors in New Jersey should send him a nice thank you basket…
News keeps on churning…
So the Cyprus crises is “solved,” for values of “solved” that means “everyone but bankers and Eurocrats get screwed.”
The European cradle-to-grave welfare state is unsustainable. It’s only a matter of how many trillions will be destroyed before the world is willing to face that fact.
From Holly Hansen comes word that Austin attorney and Democratic donor Marc Rosenthal was found guilty of 13 felony counts, including racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud and tampering with a proceeding.
Holly did a great job looking at his state donations, but I wanted to take a gander at his national contributions as well.
He gave $2,300 to Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar in 2008, and another $2,000 in 2010. He also donated $2,000 to Democratic U.S. congressmen Crio Rodriguez in March of 2008 (presumably for the Democratic primary), and then another $2,300 (the maximum donation) in October.
Going back further, Rosenthal donated:
Here in Texas, we tend to convict people for felony jury tampering, no matter how many Democrats they’ve donated to.
I’m sure this fact has absolutely nothing to do with trial lawyer and big Democratic donor Steve Mostyn suddenly deciding to move most of his practice to New York City…
Another Friday roundup of random news: