"SHUT UP NERDS!!!" they explained.

Today in nerd hatred, we have the Netflix announcement that the character Death in their TV series of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" graphic novel will be played by Kirby Howell-Baptiste, a black woman. Oh, and they listed all the actors' pronouns too, to be absolutely sure we all knew there was a non-conforming gender actor in there. There is a controversy over this, because the character of Death in the graphic novels is depicted as a white Goth woman. Fans of the graphic novel have voiced their opinions on this casting choice, which range from unctuous and fulsome approval to serious disapproval.

(English speakers with a classical education will understand that "unctuous and fulsome" implies dishonesty and sucking up, just to be clear for you people who got ripped off by your teachers back in the day.)

Now, I must say at the outset that I do not care. I have not read The Sandman. I think I looked through it when it first came out in 1987, decided it was SJW trash and passed hard. Over the years it has generally been my opinion that Neil Gaiman writes stories in a way that I find intensely annoying, he is not well represented in my library.

Therefore, I can't offer an informed opinion of Ms. Howell-Babptiste's fit as the character Death, and on the whole I really don't care. It is most unlikely I will watch it if there's anything else on.

However, that is not what this post is about.

Comic book lovers will recall the Fantastic Four reboot. They cast Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, and the internet came alive with people like me predicting the movie would suck. And it did! The FF reboot movie could suck a golf ball through a garden hose. What was interesting at the time was the number of media people screaming "RAAAAACIST!!!1!" whenever anyone would object. 

 

We were all called sexist for saying Dr. Who would suck when they made the Doctor a woman. (It did suck.) 

 

But in the same breath, all the SJWs -demanding- that Iron Fist must cast an Asian as Danny Rand, or that Dr. Who must be black were brave fighters for social justice. 

 

As it happened Iron Fist and Dr. Who sucked anyway, but not because of them casting white actors to play white characters.

What this post is about is that one more time, comic book fans are not allowed to have an opinion. If you think that you want to see the Neil Gaiman version, with casting that reflects what he did in the comics, then you are a racist and you need to shut up before somebody shuts you up.

Sorry. Nerds have opinions. We're not about to shut up. Go ahead and try to make us, see what happens.

My prediction on The Sandman by Netflix? It will probably suck. Whenever the studio stars fucking with the story by using the casting as a vehicle for virtue signalling, that's a bad sign.

From the bulging "WTF did I just read?!" file, a Canadian speaks.

I don't go to TOR.com very often, because frankly it is painful. It's the Stupid. It burns.

But today, by misadventure, I went there, and found this:

Five SFF Novels Featuring Men Who Don't Give Up Easily

"When one thinks of science fiction and fantasy protagonists, one thinks of figures like Morgaine (Gate of Ivrel), Essun (The Fifth Season), Cordelia Naismith (Shards of Honor), Beatrice Clayborn (The Midnight Bargain) and Anna Tromedlov (Hench). A casual glance suggests these are generally women, which only makes sense. The majority of fiction readers are women and of course they want relatable characters."

This is by Mr. James Davis Nicoll who according to his bio lives in Kitchener Ontario. I'm tempted to drive up there and slap him for this article, except I don't know where he lives. Slapping every man in Kitchener seems excessive just to get this one guy, you know?

Bilbo Baggins? Allen Carpentier? Harold Shea? (Yngvi is a louse!)

At any rate, he continues:

"However, it's entirely possible to write a book with a strong male protagonist at its centre ("strong" as in striking, resolute, and/or determined, not as being able to dead-lift surprising amounts of weight, of course—assessing male characters purely in physical terms would be offensively reductive). Consider these five recent examples:"

And then he outlines five books I've never heard of, by authors I've never heard of except for C.L.Polk, another Canadian. Her I've heard of, she's nominated for a Nebula this year.

Now, leaving aside the obscure recommendations, I really do take exception to the "majority of fiction readers are women" business. That's true if you take the entirety of all fiction genres. Are the majority of SF readers women? I strongly doubt it.

The final howler is here:

Of course, I could have chosen other examples. There are literally dozens of books that feature strong male protagonists!

Dozens?  Maybe only dozens published by TOR, that's a possibility.

But my vote for "strong male protagonist" in a book coming out this year is Owen Zastava Pitt.

Happy Day After Molly Norris Is Still Hiding Day!

I just remembered that yesterday marks the day that Molly Norris got thrown under the bus. 2010, we celebrated.

Here we are, 2021, and Molly is still in hiding. Her old personal website is now a broken hookup site. http://www.mollynorris.com/

Is there anybody out there still noticing that Molly got dumped by the Free Speech Left, those defenders of human rights and stuff? Nope. Not really. Molly fell off the radar back in 2015, going by Google search.

So here's to Molly. Hoist a cappuccino to the brave cartoonist who at least stood up to the assholes. You'll know it's a free country again when Molly can reclaim her name in safety.

Ivermectin turns WuFlu around in India, home of the Double Mutant Strain Of Doom

Graphs are funny things. When you see a graph with a steep upward trend, that's a big deal. Something is growing. Likewise a steep downward trend, something is shrinking.

The media lately is pretty funny too. When it comes to the WuFlu, they only notice upward trends. The steeper the line, the more they notice it. When something goes down, that they don't really bother with so much.

Case in point, India. Remember three weeks ago when India was going to become a barren wasteland of WuFlu victims? The Double Mutant Indian Strain was going to come and kill everybody? Remember that? Steep upward curve on that graph. But this week there is an equally steep downward curve, and you don't hear about that on CNN, do you?

Yeah. Big spike on the right there, and then they did something and WuFlu fell off a cliff. And you, ladies and gentlemen, did not hear squat about it.

Because for whatever reason, the public health apparatus in Canada, Europe and the USA would very much like to keep pretending that Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin don't treat WuFlu. Even though they obviously do, and quite successfully. It's hard to deny that chart showing the dreaded Indian Double Mutant Strain falling off a cliff there as soon as they got their Ivermectin distribution going.

Just like they would very much like to pretend wearing a mask prevents the spread of WuFlu, and lockdowns prevent WuFlu, when there are plenty of charts out there showing they clearly don't. (Yeah, the dentist mask? It's not protecting you. N-95 at a bare minimum to filter out the WuFlu. The dentist mask is good for maybe 10% at best, assuming you wear it right.)

Just like they would prefer if you didn't call it WuFlu, or the KungFlu, or the Chinese Flu. But it's totally okay for them to say Indian Double Mutant strain, right? Because reasons.

Now, for you Canadian readers, you've heard the fuss about Bill C-10, the SHUT UP! bill from the Liberal Party of Canada. This blog post is exactly the type of thing that C-10 is meant to curb. They'll try to charge me money for posting that graph there, or they'll simply ban JoNova's blog from Canada so I won't have access to the graph.

Okay? That's where we are right now, May 21st 2020. Now get back to work, you've got taxes to pay.

Laziness and Stupidity: Colonial Pipeline

 Laziness and Stupidity. Capital L, capital S. That's why you can't buy gas on the eastern side of the USA today.

Excerpt from a Slashdot story:

In a separate report from The Associated Press, the East Coast pipeline company was found to have "atrocious" information management practices and "a patchwork of poorly connected and secured systems," according to an outside audit from three years ago. Slashdot reader wiredmikey shares an excerpt from the report: "We found glaring deficiencies and big problems," said Robert F. Smallwood, whose consulting firm delivered an 89-page report in January 2018 after a six-month audit. "I mean an eighth-grader could have hacked into that system." Colonial said it initiated the restart of pipeline operations on Wednesday afternoon and that it would take several days for supply delivery to return to normal.

I like the consultant guy: "I mean an eighth-grader could have hacked into that system." 

That means the company management could not be assed to apply basic security measures to their computer system. That's some capital L Laziness right there. And the various layers of alphabet soup government organizations didn't make them do it, even though that's their damn job.

And this is a PIPELINE company that handles the most, as in more than half, of the fuel for the eastern USA. Which is, among other things, a strategic asset. During a war, if your army runs out of gas, you lose. Leaving that type of thing unsecured is Stupid. Capital S kind of stupid. The kind that gets people killed. Possibly a lot of people. As in hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions, in a war.

But I am quite sure that the company management is 100% certified and current on all their workplace safety and social justice qualifications.

This is almost as lazy and stupid as the Line Five pipeline fiasco in Canada, where the governor of Michigan is threatening to cut off the entire fuel supply for eastern Canada, and it looks like the governments of the USA and Canada are going to let her do it. It is illegal for her to do it, because of international treaties, but environmentalists are more important than that. So when you can't drive and you can't heat your house this fall, at least you'll know why. Greenies.