He did not enjoy the smell of heresy

The God-Emperor Ascendant puts the fear of himself into the House Republicans:

The Trump effect has landed forcefully on Capitol Hill.

Less than two hours after President-elect Donald Trump criticized House Republicans — in a tweet, of course — for trying to gut an ethics investigative unit on the first day of business in the new Congress, those plans lay in shambles in the Republican conference’s meeting room.... By aiming his social-media fire hose on fellow Republicans — even as he assembles a Cabinet filled with billionaires and insiders — Trump made clear that he intends to continue giving voice to the anti-establishment outsiders who propelled him through the Republican primaries against much more seasoned politicians and to an electoral-college win against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

That may give Trump leverage over those members of the Republican conference who have claimed the “outsider” mantle for the past six years, a period when the most conservative Republicans have gained stature back home by flouting leadership, whether it was John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) as speaker or Ryan for the past 15 months.

These Republicans regularly turned their backs on party leadership and claimed ideological purity in their carefully crafted districts that were bastions of like-minded conservatives. They operated on the assumption that the only likely political penalty was a primary challenge from the right.

Now, their party’s leader wields a Twitter account with 18.5 million followers. As he prepares to enter the Oval Office in little more than two weeks, Trump is far more popular in their districts than they are. He employs as his chief strategist the former leader of Breitbart News, a conservative media outlet that has included among its top targets the skewering of Republicans not deemed suitably conservative.

As a result, the first day of the 115th Congress served as a sort of beta test of how some Republicans will react when Trump sics his media power on them. If the most conservative flank tries to buck Trump on a pricey infrastructure deal, how will they handle the heat from Trump’s Twitter feed? If moderate Republicans try to block his moves on health care, will they withstand the heat if Trump goes to Breitbart to attack them by name?

On Tuesday the answer came fast: Run for cover.

It is good to see Donald Trump putting the bully back in the bully pulpit. Someone needs to keep the corrupt bastards in line.

Want to get re-elected, Congressman? Then you'd damn well better play ball.

Con star or fighter?

Todd Kincannon explains the difference on Gab:

Todd Kincannon · @ToddKincannon
If you are ever wondering whether somebody is a real fighter or just a Conservative Media Star™ (or wannabe), ask me. Ann Coulter, fighter. A.J. Delgado, fighter. John Derbyshire, fighter. Everybody at Taki's Magazine and @VDare, fighters. 99% of National Review, Conservative Media Stars™.

Todd Kincannon · @ToddKincannon
I've always thought military analogies in politics are lame, but here we go: I fought in the trenches to get Trump elected. The Trump people know who I am and what I did. All of them think Bill Mitchell is a useless clown who did nothing but run his mouth to people who were already voting Trump.

Todd Kincannon · @ToddKincannon
Tweeting "Rah Rah Sis Boom Bah" stuff all day does not tangibly help the cause. That's all Bill Mitchell has ever done, and all he appears capable of doing, either due to a lack of brains, a lack of balls, or both. My money's on both.

Todd Kincannon · @ToddKincannon
People who only preach to the converted are not useful allies in fighting the Left, especially when their entire goal is to become a Conservative Media Star™. That's Bill Mitchell. People like that are useless and always have been. And there are a helluva lot of them.

Todd Kincannon · @ToddKincannon
Bill Mitchell, Erick Erickson, Jonah Goldberg, Kurt Schlichter, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Glenn Beck, and many, many more, far too many to name. All each cares about is being a Conservative Media Star™. Not one of them actually cares if we accomplish anything in fighting the Left.

Todd Kincannon · @ToddKincannon
Seriously, the number one word associated with Bill Mitchell in real Trump operative circles is "clown." The number two word associated with Bill Mitchell by actual Trump operatives is "who?"

Todd Kincannon · @ToddKincannon
There is a third category of people who are fighters but not for the things we believe in. Bill Kristol is an example. He's a true fighter, but he fights for the globalists. I respect Bill Kristol, though I strongly disagree with him. I do not respect the Conservative Media Star™ crowd.

I'm not part of the Trump People, nor am I an actual Trump operative, but I have to confess, when this Bill Mitchell stuff blew up on social media as the post-election drama du jour, my reaction was most definitely "who?"

Followed by: "I don't care." I still have no idea who he is. NB: This is not an invitation to inform me. I rest content in my ignorance of the matter.

The banished slave-girl

After which the God-Emperor Ascendant sent her to NBC, shorn, dishonored, unwanted, and unloved. From the Carlos Slim blog:

Megyn Kelly, who arrived at Fox News 12 years ago as a television news neophyte but rose to become one of its two biggest stars, has decided to leave the network to take on a broad new role at NBC News for an undisclosed amount, people briefed on the negotiations said on Tuesday.

The NBC News chairman, Andrew Lack, wooed Ms. Kelly away from Fox News by offering her a triple role in which she will host her own daytime news and discussion program, anchor an in-depth Sunday night news show and take regular part in the network’s special political programming and other big-event coverage.

The move will herald a seismic shift in the cable news landscape, where Ms. Kelly had become the second-most watched host — after Bill O’Reilly of Fox News — and often helped define the national political debate, especially over the last year as Donald J. Trump regularly attacked her, at times in viciously personal terms.

All their base

In which we are reliably informed that their base, such as it is, are now belong to us. A rhetorical strategy courtesy of the Evil Legion of Evil's Xcruciator, which, uncharacteristically, does not involve wood, nails, or hammers.

Ordinarily, which is to say ordinarily when dealing with a sane enemy, it would be considered unwise to do him a small injury, or to motivate him to greater efforts. And, were we still dealing with the old mainstream Democratic Party, especially the party as it was before the Dixiecrats became Republicans, it would be a mistake to provoke them in minor and non-ruinous ways. Happily or unhappily, that party is deader than chivalry. What’s left are mostly the Trigglypuffs, along with the genocidal lunatics – like the aforementioned incestuous child molester, Lena Dunham – who want straight white men extinct, reinforced by the left-wing professorial freakshow, and egged on by myriad self-righteous and unutterably stupid assholes, molesting innocent women and their families, on public conveyances, when said women have had the bad judgment to be fathered by men the assholes don’t like.

Oh, yes, yes, there are, no doubt, some sane men and women hovering around the top echelons of the Democratic Party. But if they’re sane, they’re equally corrupt, venomous spiders, dripping with poison, at the center of left wing insanity. However, those spiders aren’t really in control of the movement anymore. Nobody is. Instead, the left is largely a bunch of self-willed, albeit unintelligent, bombs, just like Trigglypuff, waiting to go off at the slightest emotional jar.

And we – yes, we right wing knuckle-draggers – control those bombs because we can emotionally jar them. Hence, to paraphrase, ‘somebody set up them the bomb.’

Take Off Every Zig…

where “zig” is equal to “act , to include speech, perpetrated by the right that causes Social Justice Warriors to emotionally explode.”

Now think about that, for a bit. As I began, quoting Jean Raspail, the left is humorless and grim. They cannot take a joke. Indeed, they have only one joke: “He’s stupid,” as they have only one insult, “you’re stupid.” (Why is that? Well…it’s because they’re rather stupid, really. Exceptions are just that, exceptional.) We can provoke them at will, easily, any time we like.

Moreover, the more we do provoke them, for the next four years, provided we do so with humor, hence the more we can get them to act like the fascisti they are, the more likely it is that the Democrats cannot return to power, because social justice is now at the core of their base, so much the core, in fact, that they cannot repudiate it. White men? Hell, white people? Pretty much gone now, and apparently not broadly welcome to return.

That’s how we got Trump elected, really, that working class whites – and not inconsequential numbers of high quality blacks and Hispanics, too, be it noted – got tired of being ignored, except to be disadvantaged, and tired of being insulted. That’s why we’re in control of both House and Senate. That’s why we have a fairly hefty majority of state governorships. And that, o, most blessedly, is why we, not the left, are going to set the immediate tone for the Supreme Court and quite possibly create a supermajority within it that will last generations

But to make absolutely sure of that, to save the country, we need to keep the left out of power not merely through 2020, but all the way to 2024 and maybe beyond.

To that end I propose the following highly amusing program. I am going to drop a line to every right wing pundit I can think of, from Ann Coulter to Rush Limbaugh, referencing this column and suggesting that we should greet the ascension of Donald Trump to the oval office, this 20th of January, by flooding the internet, the airwaves, and the legacy media with the old but still fun meme:

All Your Base Are Belong To Us.

Make it so.

An unamenable authority

Notice how Apple attempts to utilize its position as a market gatekeeper to force other companies, such as Gab, to jump through various hoops, and potentially, even converge itself, in order to access the customers Apple controls.

An abbreviated summary of Gab's travails, as described by Andrew Torba:

They want us to include our guidelines in the app and update guidelines to include the NSFW language. It's absolutely beyond ridiculous the hoops they are forcing us through. Every rejection has more requirements. We will get there. Or we will raise hell about it.

Folks this is what we got back from Apple. Every time we fix what they want, they magically come up with new requirements. It's absolutely disgusting. They want us banning people. They want us to add blocking. They want us removing content within 24 hours. This is insane.

Folks we are pushing back on Apple bigly.

• We have feed filters. 
• We have user muting. 
• We have the ability to flag content.

There is absolutely no way this app should not be approved. Submitting an appeal, then raising hell on this issue in a very public way. Apple wants to play? We will play.

Here is our reply to Apple folks.
-We have feed filters.
-We have muting.
-We have flagging for illegal content.
-We review flagged content and can address it quickly if it breaks the law/guidelines.
-We can certainly show examples of "objectionable content" on any other social platform.

Now, as anyone who has been on Twitter or Wikipedia knows, there is a considerable amount of NSFW content, none of which is marked as such. But it's pointless to try to base an argument on this obvious double standard, because SJW-converged corporations are shamelessly hypocritical and they don't hesitate to play ideological favorites.

Just as a right-wing employee will be fired over the smallest perceived infraction that doesn't even violate company policy while an SJW employee can violate multiple company policies at will without suffering any consequences, every Alt-Tech organization will be, to at least some extent, obstructed and frozen out by the SJW-converged tech giants.

That's to be expected. The problem will get worse before it gets better, but it is only a problem in the short run, because whether the Alt-Tech organization runs the gauntlet, as Gab has, or elects to simply ignore it, as Infogalactic has to date, the experience will only make the Alt-Tech stronger and more disruptive.

On the radio

Today at 9 AM Eastern I'll be appearing on Jesse Lee Peterson's show. For details concerning where you can hear it, check @jlptalk on Twitter.

And for those who might be tempted to sperg about my "don't talk to the media" policy, note that he's a WND man. I am always pleased to speak with friends, allies, and colleagues, in public or in private.

UPDATE: the link to the recording.

I disavow

Barack Obama is guilty of being the worst anti-semite in the world, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center:

Obama’s refusal to veto anti-Israel U.N. vote ranked most anti-Semitic incident of 2016. Simon Wiesenthal Center puts U.S. abstention at top of annual list.

Dreadful. I disavow Obama and all his works. And anyone who doesn't is a Nazi and worse than Hitler.

The price of thought-policing

Is eternal vigilance. Fortunately, several intrepid Wikipedia admins are up to the task of patrolling the Wikipedia page devoted to me. It's rather amusing; first David Gerard, who is an admin and is so neutral on the subject that he cited Phil Sandifier as a reliable source, removed all references to Infogalactic and tried to deny my involvement with it.

• (single source and that questionable; see talk page. it is entirely unclear this warrants mention *at all*, let alone two subsections. get consensus for inclusion first.)
• (rm infogalactic - cut'n'paste of multiply-deleted article, closest it has to third-party coverage is one Breitbart article; not notable in mainstream or its field)

He even tried to justify his own patrolling of the page on the basis of his own bias.

I might note, I just today published a negative review of a Castalia book on Phil's site, so I hold the WSJ-certified typical opinion of Vox Day, but that I find doubles my caution and I'm second guessing myself - David Gerard (talk) 00:37, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

However, when editors kept putting mentions of Infogalactic on the page, he finally gave up, although he was careful to add an irrelevant detail concerning something we have not only never denied, but have repeatedly pointed out to others.

In 2016 Day launched an online encyclopedia called Infogalactic,[25] forking the content of Wikipedia.

This is how the Wikipedia admins police thought there, by constant nibbling away at the edges. Infogalaxians chronicles how two admins, David Gerard and Dragonfly Sixtyseven slash repeatedly away at the page over the course of a week in the interest of removing all the material they think they can justify removing.

The reason they do all this repeated nibbling and sausage slicing is because the editors eventually start to notice something isn't right.

• Day published his recommendations in his blog, which is the primary source but in the article, this is now also documented through secondary sources, i.e. SF magazines. I think it's a good idea to include both, as it allows the reader to independently verify the information. The primary sources show that respected publications like Slate and the Guardian in this case are clearly unreliable. Pkeets (talk) 16:55, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
• I'm kind of appalled looking at some of these articles from sources that are usually considered reliable. It looks like they didn't even talk to Day when writing these articles about him. Kelly hi! 17:24, 7 September 2016 (UTC)
• Or, do any research about the subject. They seem to have worked off assumptions. That means identifying bias and reliability in the sources will be important in establishing a neutral POV info in the article. Pkeets (talk) 19:09, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm far from the only individual targeted in this way. Another tactic, which was previously utilized unsuccessfully against my page, is the "denial of notability". In this case, they use the fact that the mainstream media ignores massively successful self-published authors - in this case, one of the top 20 SF authors on Amazon - in order to claim that they are not notable and delete the page.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/B. V. Larson

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was delete. The "keep" arguments are considerably weaker in terms of policy and guidelines, and often add up to "but he's very commercially successful, so he must be notable". Well, not according to our inclusion guidelines, as Tokyogirl79 points out. Her thorough analysis of the available sources hasn't been seriously addressed by those wanting to keep the article, which also weakens their side of the argument.  Sandstein  17:13, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Non notable author with no adequate references for notability. none of his books are held in more than 80 libraries a/c Worldcat; Technomancer has 79, and the others are fewer than 20. DGG ( talk ) 21:00, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Delete References now on page (Amazon.com, Audible.com) cannot support ntability. He gets a few press mentions, Here: [1],and here: [2], news google search on his name [3], but not enough to source a page or support notability.E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:01, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Delete. I found the same results: he's brought up occasionally as a WP:TRIVIAL mention, but sadly he has never received the type of coverage that Wikipedia would require to satisfy notability guidelines for authors. He's pretty much one of many authors whose works are self-published (either partially or entirely) or indie that has a fan following, but not one large enough to attract attention from places Wikipedia would consider reliable. Most of the sources I found were either WP:SPS or in places like SFFAudio, which are kind of squiffy as far as whether or not they'd pass Wikipedia's fairly strict verification guidelines. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:13, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Your argument is well-reasoned, but the sources still don't add up, from what I can see. Essentially, in the reliable sources (newspapers, mainly, and the one book) Larson is merely "name-checked" -- that is he is mentioned by name in sentences like: "...self-published writers including B.V. Larson and A.G. Riddle." And that's all. What we need is for there to be an article ABOUT him, or at least that goes into some depth, in such a source. That's what WP requires for notability. Sources that aren't neutral (like Kindle, which publishes him and therefore has a vested interest in making him look good), can't be used; nor can personal web sites and blogs. One of the sources starts out "Guess what! My cousin Brian is also a science fiction and fantasy author!" That's obviously not a neutral source. I agree with you that it's unfair that self-published authors don't get more attention, but until they start getting reviews in established sources, we have no reasoned way to separate wheat from chaff -- and, quite honestly, from the few self-published books I've opened up, there's a lot of chaff. LaMona (talk) 18:37, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

I would think that going platinum as an author would be one adequate way to separate the wheat from the chaff; selling a million books is inherently notable. This is why Infogalactic is so important, and why it will be necessary for us to ruthlessly crack down on admins and editors who want to play the same shady game of shaping a particular narrative to suit themselves, regardless of what it is.

The response is still restrained

I expect Europe will see considerably more violence in 2017. And unlike in previous years, it won't all be one way.

A group of Muslims reportedly stabbed a 21-year-old polish man to death in the street on New Year’s Eve after he threw a firecracker in the general vicinity of their Kebab shop. Poles responded the next day by smashing their shop up and throwing bricks through their windows.

Video of the incident shows a large crowd cheering their retaliatory strike.

“I would be happy if there weren’t a single Arab in our country,” one protester who did not take part in the vandalism said. “I am against foreigners ruling in our country, in our beautiful town, and that they would do such things! We don’t need them here! They have their own countries, they should rule in their home countries,” he said.

The attackers were reportedly two Algerians, a Tunisian and a Moroccan.

If the murderers aren't executed, I expect the next ones won't escape with merely having their shops destroyed. Europeans have lost all confidence in the willingness of their governments to provide them with either protection or justice. And they are gradually beginning to understand that no amount of tolerance will bring peace now that diversity is upon them.

Fake news at the Washington Post

I'm sure we all look forward to Facebook banning links to the Washington Post due to the fact that it is a confirmed provider of fake news:

The Washington Post has retracted its story about Russian hackers penetrating the nation’s electricity grid with a virus found in a Burlington, Vt., electric company laptop.

“Authorities say there is no indication of that so far [that Russians had penetrated the US electric grid],” according to an editor’s note attached to a corrected version of the story on the paper’s Web site. “The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid,” the editor’s note read.

News of the supposed hack had set off a firestorm of recriminations, with Vermont leaders calling Russian President Vladimir Putin “a thug” earlier Saturday, after one of the state’s electric utilities found a virus on a laptop computer. A utility spokesman has also told the Burlington Free Press the laptop was not hooked into the grid.

The amusing thing about the whole SJW "fake news" strategy is that even liberal observers predicted that it was going to be turned around and used against the mainstream media. This simply goes to show, once more, that a calm and strategic approach combined with ruthless tactical meme magic is an extremely effective approach to defeating the SJWs despite their possession of the cultural high ground.

On a related note, James Delingpole pens a savage declaration of war on the Liberal/Globalist/SJW/Media/Establishment Left at Breitbart London:

We will take the fight to the enemy, not cower in No Man’s Land

One of the best things about 2016 for me was the way it gave the lie to the weaselish and wet aphorism – so often repeated by so many of our impeccably reasonable, sensible and balanced TV and newspaper pundits  – that elections are “won in the centre ground.”

This was the Belial philosophy that gave us, in the U.S., that hideous continuum from the Bushes and the Clintons to Obama; and in Britain, the grotesque and malign Third Way squishery that took us from Tony Blair through to his (self-admitted heir) David Cameron and beyond. (It’s also the mindset which invented the disgraceful, sell-out concept of “soft Brexit”.)

No wonder so many of us had become so fed up with politics: no matter which party you voted for, whether the notionally left-wing one or the notionally right-wing one you still seemed to end up up with the same old vested interests, the same old liberal Establishment elite.

Of course we should always despise the liberal-left because their philosophy is morally bankrupt, dangerous and wrong. But I sometimes think that the people we should despise most of all are the squishes who pretend to be on our side of the argument but forever betray our cause. Sometimes they do this by throwing the more outspoken among us to the wolves in order to signal how tolerant and virtuous they are; sometimes they do this by endorsing some fatuous liberal position in order to show their willingness to compromise.

I call the latter approach the “dogshit yogurt fallacy.”

If conservatives like fruit or honey in their yogurt and liberals prefer to eat it with dogshit, it is NOT a sensible accommodation – much as our centrist conservative columnists might wish it so – to say: “All right. How about we eat our yogurt with a little bit of both?” We need to understand, very clearly, that there are such things as right and wrong; and that, furthermore, it is always worth fighting to the bitter end for the right thing rather than accepting second best because a bunch of lawyers and politicians and hairdressers from Brazil and squishy newspaper columnists and other members of the liberal elite have told us that second best is the best we can hope for.

On Brexit, for example, I’m with Her Majesty the Queen: “‘I don’t see why we can’t just get out? What’s the problem?’

We will never apologise, never explain, never surrender

See those scalped corpses, littering the plains? These are the guys – and it is, invariably, men – who thought that if only they showed contrition for their confected crimes the enemy would leave them alone. Sir Tim Hunt apologised, the guy from Saatchi apologised, the guy on the Rosetta space programme who wore the “sexist” shirt apologised. A fat lot of good it did them. The vengeful liberal-left doesn’t just want humiliation – it wants total annihilation.

Giving even an inch of ground to an enemy so implacable and vile is not only futile – but it also badly lets the side down by granting them a power that they do not deserve. The most recent sorry example of this was Steve Martin who actually deleted a tweet praising his late friend Carrie Fisher as a “beautiful creature” because a bunch of feminazis on Twitter complained that this was sexist objectification.

Look, I know it’s a scary thing when the SJW witch-hunt mob turns on you. But read Vox Day’s SJW Attack Survival Guide, follow the example of Nigel Farage and fight these people to the very last bullet (keeping the final round for yourself). Do not surrender!

We may or may not be outnumbered. The recent European referenda and the US presidential election suggest that we are not. We may not have the high ground. But we are never outgunned, intellectually or literally. Do not surrender, do not apologize, and do not hesitate to go on the attack, either directly or circumspectly, every single time you encounter an SJW anywhere.

Immigration is invasion

In There Will Be War Vol. X, Martin van Creveld demonstrated that immigration is war is immigration. The idea that because immigrants are unarmed, they are not invaders is more than simply false, at this point it is observably a lie. National borders are simply being overrun and nations are being conquered; the fact that neither guns are swords are being used is irrelevant:

RIOT police fought running battles with a mob of more than a thousand migrants who tried to storm Europe's borders and force their way into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta today. At least 1,100 asylum seekers rushed the barbed wire fence protecting the tiny north African enclave, which is surrounded on all sides by Morocco, in a desperate bid to reach the EU.

Spanish and Moroccan authorities desperately fought to restore order as the migrants, most from sub-Saharan Africa, scaled the border barrier and brawled with police. Once inside the miniscule Spanish territory they would be able to claim asylum in Spain or travel onwards towards the promised lands of Germany and Sweden.

The migrants used rocks and metal bars as they battled with police officers from Spain and Morocco, who joined forces to defend the border. Television footage showed migrants perched on the top of the fence as they tried to get over. Around 55 police officers were injured in the chaos - 50 from Morocco and five from Spain. Moroccan authorities said 10 of their security personnel had been serious wounded during the fighting.

It is reprehensible that Europe's governments are assisting, rather than sinking, the invaders' ships and refusing to shoot the invaders, even those who are violently attacking those guarding the national borders. Violence is coming one way or another; better it take place on the borders than inside them.

How would it have been any less an invasion if Hitler had sent one million unarmed Hitler Jugend to cross the English channel on rafts seeking asylum? In the 1940s, the British had the courage to defend themselves. These days, virtually no one but the Saudis, the Hungarians, the Poles, and the Swiss are willing to do so.

Two questions

Both Selenoth-related. And yes, this is an example of the stuff we discuss at Brainstorm from time to time, but I need more general opinions on these two items.

1. A number of people have been saying they would like to see some sort of summary of the previous book in order to help refresh their memory of A THRONE OF BONES, or even to let them jump right into A SEA OF SKULLS. I really don't like the idea of a conventional "What Has Gone Before", since I don't like intruding on the text, but I can imagine where a letter or two, such as appeared in the first book, might be apt. They would go into the Extended Edition, probably after the Prologue. Yes/No?

2. A few people have encouraged me to crowdfund the two audiobooks, because they are so long that it's hard to find top quality narrators interested in ACX's revenue share option. While we do have one good English volunteer presently tackling the short stories and Summa, it's going to take him a long time just to get through those; I think he's wrapping up Witchking and is moving on to Wardog soon. (We'll put them out together with Summa, just as we're doing with the print.) I'm a little leery about the crowdfunding idea, since you guys are already supporting so many things and this is simply not something I consider a priority on the order of Infogalactic, or even Brainstorm. A top-quality narrator goes for 200 to 400 per hour, and ATOB alone will require 36 hours. Do the math and you can see the problem. Anyhow, share your thoughts on this, if you have any.

To be blunt, I don't listen to audiobooks myself, so it's just never been a priority for me. But, I understand some people love them, and I can understand that fans of epic fantasy probably would enjoy having 72+ hours of Selenoth to listen to. So, I'm open to ideas and suggestions. Please note that I'm not looking for volunteers; we have a good volunteer already and I'm not willing to do anything that isn't going to be both professional and excellent.

NFL Week 17

This is the weekly NFL open thread

The state of publishing 2017

Larry Correia fisks a minor author who appears to be hell-bent on convincing herself that mainstream publishing is the only way to go despite having sold fewer books than every single Castalia House author:

I realized that Laurie wasn’t providing writing advice for people who actually want to make a decent living as writers. She is providing advice to people who want to be aloof artistes at dinner parties, before they go back to their day job at Starbucks.

As for what Laurie says about gatekeepers, it is all horse shit. She has no flipping idea what she’s talking about.

Publishers are the “gatekeepers”. If they like you, you’re in, and if they don’t like you, you’re out. Problem is, at best they only have so many publishing slots to fill every year, so they cater to some markets, and leave others to languish. And at worst, they are biased human beings, who often have their heads inserted into their own rectums.

Agents represent the author. Their job is to find stuff they think they can sell to a publisher, and then they keep 15%. So “good” is secondary to “Can I sell this to the gatekeepers?” And then we’re back to slots and rectums.

Editors try to make the author’s stuff better. Period. They aren’t gate keepers, because it is their job to make the stuff that got through the gate suck less (seriously, the HuffPo should hire one).  Only self-published authors can hire editors too. Andy Weir hired Bryan Thomas Schmidt to edit the original self-published The Martian. Last I heard that book did okay.

“National and international reviewers” are on the wrong side of the gate, and I’m baffled why she included them. Reviewers come along after the fact, some are useful, but most aren’t. Even though I was ignored or despised by most of the big review places for most of my career, they haven’t made a lick of difference to my sales.

These gatekeepers are assessing whether or not your work is any good.

The problem is that “good” is subjective. What you personally think is “good” is irrelevant when there are a million consumers who disagree. I wouldn’t buy a copy of Twilight, but the author lives in a house made out of solid gold bars. “Good” is arbitrary. The real question is whether your product is sellable. (and yes, it is just a product, get over yourself)

Readers expect books to have passed through all the gates, to be vetted by professionals. This system doesn’t always work out perfectly, but it’s the best system we have.

It was the only system we had before technology came along and upset their apple cart.

When only the gatekeepers could vet what was “good”, sometimes they were right, but since often the “professionals” were 20 something lit majors just out of college, or some clueless weasel who had spent his whole existence in the echo chamber of Manhattan publishing, often the system fed its own tastes and ignored vast swaths of the market.

And when you neglect a market, it will spend its entertainment dollars elsewhere. So in this case, competition is good. Because the real competition isn’t between traditional and indy publishing, it is between reading and movies and video games and streaming. Ultimately the market decides who wins, not some self-appointed gatekeeper.

As Larry correctly observes, her atttitude is that of an author who is more interested in personal validation than professional status. The viability of independent publishing doesn't mean there isn't some advantage to publishing with the Big Five, especially if your name happens to begin with MILO. But, as in so many other things, what works for Milo is very unlikely to work for you. He's a genuine star. Regardless, even very successful independent writers who sell millions of copies don't hit #1 on Amazon months before release.

Nor is print anywhere close to dead. It's not really fair to compare our print sales to our digital sales, since less than one-third of our books are in print yet and we have even fewer audio books out, but the breakdown of Castalia's 2016 book sales is as follows:

• 67.8% ebook
• 20.5% print edition
• 07.5% Kindle Unlimited
• 04.2% audiobook

That's unexpected, since we originally assumed Castalia would be an ebook-only publisher. But the real game changer, where the mainstream publishers are concerned, is KU. They don't play there and they can't afford to play there. And since publishing is a negative sum game, every $12 million paid out per month by Amazon probably represents at least another $48 million in revenue lost to the major publishers plus around $10 million lost to the authors published by them. It's my suspicion that Amazon tries to set the KU compensation so that an author will make roughly the same amount from a KU sale-equivalent that he'll make from conventional publishing sale, rather than the same amount he'll make from an ebook sale.

KU isn't great for independent publishers even though some of our big books pay out more per book equivalent than we make per sale. For reference, the average KU payout per page was $0.004848 in 2016. But at least we can afford to be there.

Better deportations than bounties

Italy's new government hasn't waited to act on the migrant crisis:

Italy will seek to deport more migrants who have no right to be in the country and will open new detention centers to hold them before their expulsion, according to a written directive and a ministry source. Police chief Franco Gabrielli sent a two-page directive to stations across the country on Friday ordering them to increase efforts to identify and deport migrants a week after Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri was shot dead near Milan.

The directive, seen by Reuters, says police should take "extraordinary action" before the "growing migratory pressure in an international context marked by instability and threats" to "control and remove irregular foreigners."

Interior Minister Marco Minniti plans to open several new detention centers that hold migrants prior to their expulsion, a ministry source said, in line with repeated requests by European Union partners.

The tougher migrant stance, which several Italian papers ran on their front pages on Saturday, is the first major policy change made by Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni's government since it took power in mid-December, and comes on the heels of a record year of boat migrant arrivals.

It also comes less than a month after the Berlin truck attack by Amri that killed 12, including an Italian woman.

We'll see how serious they are about this, but if the government doesn't resolve the situation soon, the people are going to take care of it themselves. And the Sicilian Vespers will probably be the model, given that famous Italian temperance.

Traffic report 2016

Last year I mentioned that I believed 2016 was going to be "absolutely extraordinary". And it turned out to be exactly that, as the God-Emperor Ascendant's unexpected success in the early primary turned into a Super Tuesday victory that became a nomination and eventual election. More excellent authors joined Castalia House, Infogalactic and Gab were launched, I finally got some new Selenoth out the door, and Milo became the bestselling author on all of Amazon. Incredible.

In 2016, Vox Popoli had 25,817,343 pageviews and Alpha Game 5,332,285 for a total of 31,149,628
Google pageviews. The blogs are now running at a average rate of 85,341 daily pageviews, up from an average 56,923 last year. The running annual pageview totals are as follows:

2008: 3,496,757
2009: 4,414,801
2010: 4,827,183
2011: 5,969,066
2012: 7,774,074
2013: 13,111,695
2014: 15,693,622
2015: 20,776,969
2016: 31,149,628

I very much appreciate the part you have all played in making that happen. On Twitter, I picked up an additional 21,000 followers, but that has proved irrelevant since I stopped using it in favor of Gab, where I now have 14,006 followers. We've been making so many server-related changes at Infogalactic of late that the statistics are a bit wonky, but it already has average daily traffic in excess of 90,000 pageviews. The Burn Unit is now 173 subscribers strong and we're hoping to increase that to 1,000 by the end of the year while making serious progress in Phase Two. Dark Lord Designs now features 11 different t-shirt and sweatshirt designs in a variety of colors.

Castalia House grew from 37 titles, including 5 in print and 1 in audiobook, to 65, with 19 titles in print and 8 in audiobook. Book sales increased 54 percent, with print now accounting for 21 percent of the total. The three new editors made a big difference, although we did not get three of the books out that I anticipated releasing this time last year. This year, we're looking forward to publishing new fiction from John C. Wright, Nick Cole, B.V. Larson and David VanDyke, Peter Grant, Mojo Mori, Stefan Molyneux, and Martin van Creveld, as well as non-fiction from Jerry Pournelle, Jeffro Johnson, Mike Cernovich, Vox Day, and Martin van Creveld.

Yes, that's correct. Castalia House will be publishing a novel by Martin van Creveld, which I believe will be his debut novel. I think I can guarantee that the subject matter will blow everyone's minds. Think CS Lewis meets Robert Graves. We'll also get the Eternal Warriors trilogy out this year, in ebook and in print, as well as the three volumes that comprise the Collected Columns from my WND days. I anticipate publishing two additional non-fiction books this year, plus the complete print edition of A Sea of Skulls.

Thanks to all of you who continue to support VP and all of its various endeavors. Thanks to the VFM for your mindless obedience and ever-burning hatred for the SJW enemy, thanks to the Dread Ilk for your awe-inspiring loyalty, thanks to the Brainstormers for your support and advice, thanks to the Original Galaxians, Techstars, Burn Unit and Phase 2 donators for making Infogalactic possible, thanks to the Rabid Puppies for your gleeful and wanton destruction, and thanks especially to the entire Castalia House team of authors, editors, proofreaders, and volunteers.

We may not be responsible for the God-Emperor's ascension, but we are, without question, making a substantive difference in many people's lives around the world. As good as 2016 was - and it was very good - I anticipate an even better 2017, as more Dread Ilk begin to spread their dark wings, launch their own initiatives, and begin rampaging across the land. In closing, I will note that it's inspiring to see John Scalzi courageously keeping his nonexistent chin up despite another 11 percent decline in traffic at The Most Important Blog in Science Fiction Ever, a 38 percent decline from its 2012 peak that has brought it back to late-2009 levels of traffic. So brave. Thank you for this.

What a shameless hypocrite

Angela Merkel has got to be the most shameless hypocrite in the world today.

Angela Merkel has told German citizens that the biggest challenge the country is facing is from Islamist terrorism. In her New Year message she tells Germans that their country is stronger than terrorism and the government will do everything to ensure 'security in freedom'.

In her annual televised message, which is being broadcast today, chancellor Mrs Merkel says 2016 has been 'a year of severe tests', the toughest of them Islamic extremist terror. But she adds, however, that she is 'confident for Germany'.

'It is particularly bitter and sickening when terror attacks are committed by people who claim to seek protection in our country,' Mrs Merkel, who has faced criticism for allowing large numbers of migrants into Germany in 2015, says in her address. But 'in going about our life and our work, we are telling the terrorists: you are murderers full of hatred but you will not determine how we live and want to live'.

'We are free, considerate and open,' she adds.

What Germans are is sitting ducks, helpless and restrained from defending themselves, their nation, and their culture, as long as this horrible, hypocritical woman is in power.

On cherishing extremists

People have asked me, repeatedly, if I am not violating my stated tactic of "protect and cherish your extremists" when I criticize those on the right for doing what I consider to be objectively stupid things. The answer is both simple and obvious: no.

You protect an extremist by refusing to criticize him when he does something extreme to the enemy in the interest of the cause. You protect an extremist by refusing to criticize the excessive tactics he utilizes in taking the battle to the other side. You do not protect an idiot by refusing to criticize him when he a) acts like a moderate and attacks someone on your side, b) does something idiotic and irrelevant, c) serves the interests of the other side by dancing for the media.

The latter really isn't that hard to understand. Look at how the media actually went so far as to pay for the KKK's wood and fuel just so they could create evidence to support their "stupid white people is raciss" narrative.

TIJAT producers went so far as to orchestrate more than one cross-burning ceremony in Pulaski, though it is presented in the documentary as if the KKK is actually hosting the event. “We’ve been allowed special access to film this secret induction,” reads a title card that precedes one of the cross-burning scenes.

“It was the producers who told me they wanted a cross-lighting,” recounted Nichols. “In fact they made two cross-lightings cause they wanted to reshoot some scenes. They bought everything—the wood, the burlap to wrap around the wood, the diesel and kerosene for my cross lighting. They even brought all the food for everyone.”

If you're dressed in a monkey suit and dancing for the media, you're not "playing 4d chess", you're not "mocking the media", you're not an extremist who merits defending, you're just a dancing monkey being used by ruthless hypocrites on the other side.

“They kept asking me, wanting me, to use the word ‘nigger,’” said Nichols, who alleged he was paid $600 per day by producers to participate. “I was sitting down being filmed and interviewed with the lights and the backdrop set up, and I said something and used the word ‘blacks.’ Then the producer interrupted me and said ‘No, no, no. We want him to use the word “nigger!”’’’

There is always demand for idiots who will play media patsy. And while there are people who can go boldly into the lion's den and make the lions do tricks, if your name is not "Donald Trump" or "Milo Yiannopoulos", you are not one of them. Trust me on this. I am smarter than you, I am better-educated than you, and as a three-time nationally syndicated columnist, I have far more media experience than you. And yet, even I can't do it reliably. That's why I limit my contact with the media to written questions, and that's why they don't run my answers when they interview me. I don't serve their narrative.

Turn your guns on allies and sympathizers instead of the enemy, and you lose all right to any cover or assistance or regard. I don't have much tolerance for idiots and I don't have any for those who attack my friends and allies. If you're going to attack Mike and Milo and Stefan and Roosh, you won't do it here and you will go immediately on my "ignore that idiot" list.

Told ya

Remember when Ronda Rousey claimed she was good enough to not only fight Floyd Mayweather, but beat him? That was every bit as dumb as everyone who knows anything about women's martial arts capabilities said it was at the time:

Ronda Rousey was once again pummeled by a striker and lost her second consecutive bout. The former women’s bantamweight champion was completely outclassed in the striking game by Amanda Nunes, who stopped Rousey at 48 seconds of the first round to retain her women’s bantamweight championship in the main event of UFC 207 at T-Mobile Arena.

Nunes landed a big right just seconds into the fight that clearly hurt Rousey, who was fighting for the first time since a stunning defeat at the hands of Holly Holm on Nov. 14, 2015.

Rousey tried to throw punches with Nunes, but she had nothing to offer. Nunes was blistering her with combinations, hitting her with virtually everything she threw.

As I said at the time, Rousey not only couldn't last a round with Floyd, she couldn't last a round with me. Even trained women are weaker than 13 year-old-boys, they're much slower than 13-year-old boys, and they don't take punches as well.

Remember that. Every time you talk about how the latest female fighter du jour can take on a champion boxer or whoever, you're essentially claiming that a really tough 11-year-old can beat the man. It's not merely wrong to do so, it's stupid and dangerous.

And notice that Nunes landed 23 of 35 strikes on a largely defenseless Rousey, but still didn't put her down.

It's Milo's world

We're all just living in it. This is hugely amusing, because I was informed that some SF-SJWs were doing their usual narrative-spinning about how Milo's $250k book contract really wasn't that big, and tended to indicate that he wasn't really all that famous or important.

Then I noticed that SJWAL sales were spiking and I wondered why. This is why.

Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Threshold Editions (March 14, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1501173081
ISBN-13: 978-1501173080

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#1 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Censorship
#1 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Political
#1 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Commentary & Opinion

So, congratulations, Milo, for hitting #1 on Amazon. And, well, thanks! Apparently it's not at all a bad thing to have the best-selling author in the world write the Foreword to your own little book.

Love the title. It quite suits him. He is dangerous, Ice...man.

An illegitimate government

The Swedish government can no longer be considered legitimate:

Five Afghan teenagers have been convicted of gang-raping a boy in Sweden - but none of them will be deported because their homeland is 'too dangerous', it has emerged.

The victim, who is under 15, was filmed during the attack, which happened in woodland in Uppsala, south east Sweden. He was beaten and dragged out to the forest at knife-point before being subjected to an ordeal lasting more than an hour, prosecutors say.

After a trial, the teenagers were found guilty of aggravated rape - but despite requests by prosecutors, they will not be expelled from Sweden because of their age and the dangers they would face in their homeland.

Who gives a damn about either their age or the state of their homeland? The Afghan teenagers should either be a) repatriated, or failing that, b) executed. There is no place for them in any civilized Western society.

The first function of government is to protect the nation it governs. Any government that cannot, or will not, do that first and foremost, is illegitimate.

WTF happened to the Vikings? Why do they tolerate this? All all Swedish males now men without balls or backbones?

The myth of the Cold War

Paul Craig Roberts addresses the common misconception that Ronald Reagan sought to break the Soviet Union and win the Cold War rather than end it.

The myth is widespread that President Reagan won the cold war by breaking the Soviet Union financially with an arms race. As one who was involved in Reagan’s effort to end the cold war, I find myself yet again correcting the record.

Reagan never spoke of winning the cold war. He spoke of ending it. Other officials in his government have said the same thing, and Pat Buchanan can verify it.

Reagan wanted to end the Cold War, not win it. He spoke of those “godawful” nuclear weapons. He thought the Soviet economy was in too much difficulty to compete in an arms race. He thought that if he could first cure the stagflation that afflicted the US economy, he could force the Soviets to the negotiating table by going through the motion of launching an arms race. “Star wars” was mainly hype. (Whether or nor the Soviets believed the arms race threat, the American leftwing clearly did and has never got over it.)

Reagan had no intention of dominating the Soviet Union or collapsing it. Unlike Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama, he was not controlled by neoconservatives. Reagan fired and prosecuted the neoconservatives in his administration when they operated behind his back and broke the law.

The Soviet Union did not collapse because of Reagan’s determination to end the Cold War. The Soviet collapse was the work of hardline communists, who believed that Gorbachev was loosening the Communist Party’s hold so quickly that Gorbachev was a threat to the existence of the Soviet Union and placed him under house arrest. It was the hardline communist coup against Gorbachev that led to the rise of Yeltsin. No one expected the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The US military/security complex did not want Reagan to end the Cold War, as the Cold War was the foundation of profit and power for the complex. The CIA told Reagan that if he renewed the arms race, the Soviets would win, because the Soviets controlled investment and could allocate a larger share of the economy to the military than Reagan could.

Reagan did not believe the CIA’s claim that the Soviet Union could prevail in an arms race. He formed a secret committee and gave the committee the power to investigate the CIA’s claim that the US would lose an arms race with the Soviet Union. The committee concluded that the CIA was protecting its prerogatives. I know this because I was a member of the committee.

It's kind of hard to argue with an eyewitness in the bureaucratic inner circle.

Latest reviews of A SEA OF SKULLS

At Castalia House, we are intent on building gradually, on the strong foundations of well-loved series of novels rather than chasing one-off hits. Amazon has listed Arts of Dark and Light as a series now, and the reviews for the latest installment continue to be gratifyingly positive.

Epic Fantasy done right

Vox Day has a gift. He is exceptionally skilled at crafting viewpoints that are reasonable, relatable, emotionally compelling, and completely opposed to each other. This serves him well in the genre of epic fantasy, as it enables him to ensure the reader is fully invested in all the many pieces that make up the puzzle of a great fantasy epic.

Not only do his characters feel realized, his plot is suitably grand. From labyrinthine schemes, to an army that has yet to show its true terror, and a pervading presence of evil that threatens all of Selenoth, our heroes have quite the obstacles to overcome. With these first two books we've been shown small pieces of the disaster that is to befall Selenoth, and I for one, cannot wait for the next installment.


Simply Amazing

Head and shoulders above its predecessor, which is no mean feat! It manages to have multiple characters with completely different viewpoints without a) becoming a confusing mess or b) being disappointing when subbing in an uninteresting character for an interesting one, since all the characters were genuinely interesting. All were fully fleshed out and heroic in their own way. Amazing world-building also really made the story come alive, everything had a real sense of place. A fantastic read, and I can't wait for the next book in the series!


The Saga of Selenoth Grows and Gains Momentum

One of my favorite, all-too-brief parts of Lord of the Rings was the brief view of things we get from an orcish perspective when Sam is temporarily bearing the ring on Frodo's behalf; not with guilty pleasure because the orcs were bad, but because it gave us a glimpse of the world of Middle Earth and War of the Ring from such a different point of view. A Sea of Skulls, the second installment in the Arts of Dark and Light trilogy pentalogy set in the world of Selenoth--a fantasy realm where elves and dwarves, orcs and goblins, have been partially displaced by a Catholicized Roman Empire exerting powerful influence through the iron discipline of its legions--gives us that and much more.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like for Roman infantry, with their centurions and balllistae, to stand their ground against goblin hordes, war pigs, and orcish shamans (or have now begun to wonder), the world of Selenoth is for you, and the Arts of Dark and Light trilogy pentalogy  tells a complex and engaging story of war and intrigue set in that world as the various races of Selenoth are manipulated and set against each other by powerful actors in the shadows....

This is grown-up fantasy which makes for a decent study of human (or orcish, for that matter) nature, not to mention Roman military chain of command, and entertains questions like how the seemingly inevitable decline of an advanced but decadent elven civilization could possibly be reversed, and how dwarves unexpectedly stuck in their own tunnels might feel about it. The violence depicted is quite explicit, both in the grim reality of war and especially in the opening scene of a brutal orc raid on a human village, but not exulted in, and one manages to understand the comradery-in-arms of warriors on every side of the struggle, human or otherwise.


But speaking of trilogies that are not trilogies, let's not forget the first quarter of John C. Wright's excellent Moth & Cobweb series. The final book of The Green Knight's Squire have also been getting excellent reviews.


Fantastic modern, yet traditional fantasy

If you like the old tales of elves, heroes, Arthurian legends, men and monsters and great deeds, then you will enjoy this modern retelling. Highly enjoyable and recommended.


A Fine Conclusion to an Excellent Adventure Trilogy

Swan Knight's Sword is a fitting end to the story of Gilberec Moth, an idealistic teenager out of place in the human world who gradually becomes a brave, worthy, Christian knight....The same elements present in the earlier works are apparent here. Swashbuckling adventure featuring lavish description of mystical beings and surroundings as well as full-blooded, desperate combat. A strong sense of Christian morality. Many newly revealed secrets of both Gil's past and the elf world.

As with the second book, there are a myriad of references, both Christian and pagan, expertly blended together. I was particularly amused by the one to a character of Edgar Rice Burroughs, an author all modern adventure writers owe a debt of gratitude to. Or the use of Roland's horn.

However, this installment also introduces several new wrinkles. There is a more varied, consistent use of humor. Much of it comes from Ruff, Gil's trusty dog whose barks he can understand. In fact, all the interaction with Gil talking to animals is funny. John C Wright evidently discovered the same comedic truth that Ricky Gervais has; personifying animals is always funny. There is also verbal humor and some absurdist situations.

Swan Knight's Sword features an especially strong conclusion, being the culmination of Gil's transformation from a strange boy into a righteous, mighty man. While it satisfyingly ends this tale of Gilberec Moth, it promises more adventure for both him and the world at large.


A worthy ending, a tantalizing beginning

Swan Knight's Sword is the best in this trilogy. A beautiful paean of adventure, courage, honor, loyalty and love. This book reminds me of the stuff I read in my youth, before the fantasy genre was a cesspool of pornography and meaningless nihilistic violence. I laughed, I cried, I wished I had a sword. But of course one does not simply walk into MordorMart and buy a sword, one must be bequeathed a sword by a father, or win one in a heroic quest. And sometimes one must hunt down and confront the magically invulnerable sasquatch that stole your father's sword. This is one of those times...

Make California Not-America

It's gone completely off the deep end and is not conducive to national greatness:

Beginning on Jan. 1, prostitution by minors will be legal in California. Yes, you read that right.

SB 1322 bars law enforcement from arresting sex workers who are under the age of 18 for soliciting or engaging in prostitution, or loitering with the intent to do so. So teenage girls (and boys) in California will soon be free to have sex in exchange for money without fear of arrest or prosecution.

This terribly destructive legislation was written and passed by the progressive Democrats who control California's state government with a two-thirds "supermajority." To their credit, they are sincere in their belief that decriminalizing underage prostitution is good public policy that will help victims of sex trafficking. Unfortunately, the reality is that the legalization of underage prostitution suffers from the fatal defect endemic to progressive-left policymaking: it ignores experience, common sense and most of all human nature — especially its darker side....

Unfortunately for Californians, SB 1322 isn't an outlier — it's only the tip of the liberal iceberg. 2017 will see the Golden State subjected to wave after wave of laws taking effect that are well-intentioned but disastrous embodiments of progressive utopianism.

One such new Democratic-authored law throws open the door to even greater government dependency on the part of the poor by rolling back proven reforms. In 1996, welfare reform was one of the greatest social legislation achievements of the last century, ending the lifetime welfare system and putting millions of Americans on the road to self-reliance and self-respect. In its wake, California lawmakers passed a law barring increased payments to women who have more children while still on welfare, in order to encourage women to achieve independence before having more children.

It's a tough provision that works — which was apparently irrelevant to Gov. Jerry Brown, who just signed a bill repealing that prohibition. Henceforth, no matter how many children someone has while on welfare, the state government will ratchet up payments with each child, with no limit.

I think it is giving California's lunatic left entirely too much credit to assume they are sincere in any beliefs. So, here is a three-step plan for the God-Emperor to Make America Great Again.

• Relocate all post-1965 non-Americans and dual citizens to California. Settle them on the copious national parkland there.
• Declare California independent. 
• Build the Wall with California on the other side.

He can even sweeten the deal by letting California off the hook for their pro-rata share of the national debt. 

End of the monopolar world

Russia is succeeding where the USA failed:

Labelled an international pariah only months ago by Boris Johnson, and warned he would be stuck in a Syrian quagmire by a patronising Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin ends 2016 if not as the undisputed victor, then at least as the man at the centre of decision making.

It is Moscow and not Washington that is calling the shots in the Middle East.

Reeling from its cold war defeat and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet empire, Moscow was unable to save Yugoslavia from what it termed western aggression.

But in the case of Syria, it can claim it has recovered its self-respect. In the process, it has built a brutal reputation for sticking by its friends, understanding the dynamics of the region better than America, and knowing how to use military power to forge diplomatic alliances.

The US, by contrast, ends 2016 out in the cold, holding a postmortem into the failure of its peace drive with Israel.

That's the difference a leader who puts interests of his nation first versus one who wants to transform his nation into something it is not can make.

Brainstorm tomorrow

We'll have a Brainstorm tomorrow, December 30, at 7 PM Eastern. Invites will be out in the AM. Closed event.

Possibly the greatest thing I have seen in my life

I wouldn't have thought anything could top NIPPON MANJU, and then came Babymetal. But this... this is just something else entirely. It is three minutes and twenty-five seconds of unmitigated awesome.

Anti-Christian hate crime

Israeli parliamentarian destroys the New Testament and declares that Christianity "belongs in the garbage can of history".

MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union), a member of the Israeli parliament tore up a copy of the New Testament and threw it in the trash, an act that was apparently caught on camera. Ben Ari and several other Knesset members received by mail on Monday a copy of the New Testament, sent by the Bible Society in Israel, an organization that distributes religious books.

In the letter sent with the book, director of the Christian organization Victor Kalisher wrote that the new edition “sheds light on the Holy Scriptures and helps understand them."

“We hope the book will help you and illuminate your way,” Kalisher furter wrote.

However, while most MK's chose to ignore the book or return it to its sender, the rightist lawmaker chose to term the book a "provocation," tore it up into shreds and then threw it out.

“This abominable book (the New Testament) galvanized the murder of millions of Jews during the Inquisition and during auto da fe instances,” Ben Ari said adding that “Sending the book to MK's is a provocation. There is no doubt that this book and all it represents belongs in the garbage can of history.”

Imagine the outrage if a U.S. Congressman tore up a copy of the Talmud and denounced Judaism on camera.

There is no such thing as Judeo-Christianity. It does not exist. There are no "Judeo-Christian values", any more than there are "Islamo-Christian" or "Hindu-Shinto" values.

What many naive Christians need to understand is that many Jews absolutely hate Christians and Christianity. Such Jews are neither our friends nor our allies, but our overt enemies.

That does not mean that all Jews are enemies of Christianity. It doesn't even mean that most of them are. It simply means that they are a distinct people with their own distinct interests, a nation who should neither be favored nor trusted on the sole basis of their religious or ethnic identity. And like everyone else, Jews should be judged as individuals, on the basis of their individual statements and actions.

As for Israel, the USA should support it to the extent it is in American interests to do so. As a regional power in the volatile Middle East, Israel is much more useful to Americans as an ally than as an enemy. But Christians nevertheless need to understand that many Israelis, including some Israeli political leaders, are their open and avowed enemy.

Now, I realize there are more than a few Jews and Christians alike who would prefer to bury all signs of this Jewish enmity for Christians and Christianity for one reason or another. This is understandable, and it may even be well-intentioned. But if you are inclined to knowingly keep the deceived in the dark, I think you really need to ask yourself whom you are serving in that regard.

How Putin influenced the US election

The Saker explains how Vladimir Putin really did influence the recent US presidential election:

I will dare to speculate that Russia did play a role in the election of Trump. No, not by hacking emails or by recruiting Ron Paul (!!!) as an agent of Russian propaganda, but by openly and firmly confronting the USA on all fronts and showing that Russia would not bend her knee before the AngloZionist Empire. As I have written many times, Russia has been preparing for war for years now and while Russians were (and still are) afraid of war, they are also ready and willing to fight it if forced to do so. In his latest press conference Putin specifically referred to the will of the Russian people as a key element in Russia’s ability to defeat any aggressor when he said,

We are stronger than any potential aggressor. I have no problem repeating it. I also said why we are stronger. This has to do with the effort to modernise the Russian Armed Forces, as well as the history and geography of our country, and the current state of Russian society

and he is absolutely right. Sure, Hillary was probably stupid enough to try to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, but the 200 or so generals and admirals who expressed their support for Trump probably understood what that kind of folly would entail. Furthermore, it appears that quite a few Americans are sympathetic to Russia and Putin himself. Again, in his latest press conference Putin referred to this and made some very interesting comments:

I do not take support for the Russian President among a large part of Republican voters as support for me personally, but rather see it in this case as an indication that a substantial part of the American people share similar views with us on the world’s organisation, what we ought to be doing, and the common threats and challenges we are facing. It is good that there are people who sympathise with our views on traditional values because this forms a good foundation on which to build relations between two such powerful countries as Russia and the United States, build them on the basis of our peoples’ mutual sympathy. (…) It seems to me that Reagan would be happy to see his party’s people winning everywhere, and would welcome the victory of the newly elected President so adept at catching the public mood, and who took precisely this direction and pressed onwards to the very end, even when no one except us believed he could win.

Putin puts it down to values, common values, between the Russian and the American people.

Personal sidebar: for whatever this is worth, I regularly interact with Americans who support Putin on the grounds that "he stands for American values unlike the SOBs in Washington".

But how did the Americans become aware of what values Putin and Russia stood for if not for the ceaseless efforts of Putin himself and the alternative media to convey these values to the general public? I think that by OPENLY denouncing the total hypocrisy of the AngloZionist Empire and by OPENLY offering a different civilizational model, Putin and Russia did have an impact on the public opinion in the West. To put it simply: Russia has scored an ideological victory over the AngloZionist imperialists. In other words, the Russian policy of standing firm against the Empire while openly challenging it on its ideological foundation was the correct one and it probably did have an impact upon the outcome of the election in the USA.

By any means necessary

George Soros is pulling out all the stops to try to impede the God-Emperor's rule while saving the EU from itself. But I find this article by the aged string-puller, entitled "Open Society Needs Defending", to make for very satisfactory reading indeed.

Well before Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, I sent a holiday greeting to my friends that read: “These times are not business as usual. Wishing you the best in a troubled world.” Now I feel the need to share this message with the rest of the world. But before I do, I must tell you who I am and what I stand for.

I am an 86-year-old Hungarian Jew who became a US citizen after the end of World War II. I learned at an early age how important it is what kind of political regime prevails. The formative experience of my life was the occupation of Hungary by Hitler’s Germany in 1944. I probably would have perished had my father not understood the gravity of the situation. He arranged false identities for his family and for many other Jews; with his help, most survived.

In 1947, I escaped from Hungary, by then under Communist rule, to England. As a student at the London School of Economics, I came under the influence of the philosopher Karl Popper, and I developed my own philosophy, built on the twin pillars of fallibility and reflexivity. I distinguished between two kinds of political regimes: those in which people elected their leaders, who were then supposed to look after the interests of the electorate, and others where the rulers sought to manipulate their subjects to serve the rulers’ interests. Under Popper’s influence, I called the first kind of society open, the second, closed.

The classification is too simplistic. There are many degrees and variations throughout history, from well-functioning models to failed states, and many different levels of government in any particular situation. Even so, I find the distinction between the two regime types useful. I became an active promoter of the former and opponent of the latter.

I find the current moment in history very painful. Open societies are in crisis, and various forms of closed societies – from fascist dictatorships to mafia states – are on the rise. How could this happen? The only explanation I can find is that elected leaders failed to meet voters’ legitimate expectations and aspirations and that this failure led electorates to become disenchanted with the prevailing versions of democracy and capitalism. Quite simply, many people felt that the elites had stolen their democracy.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the sole remaining superpower, equally committed to the principles of democracy and free markets. The major development since then has been the globalization of financial markets, spearheaded by advocates who argued that globalization increases total wealth. After all, if the winners compensated the losers, they would still have something left over.

The argument was misleading, because it ignored the fact that the winners seldom, if ever, compensate the losers. But the potential winners spent enough money promoting the argument that it prevailed. It was a victory for believers in untrammeled free enterprise, or “market fundamentalists,” as I call them. Because financial capital is an indispensable ingredient of economic development, and few countries in the developing world could generate enough capital on their own, globalization spread like wildfire. Financial capital could move around freely and avoid taxation and regulation.

Globalization has had far-reaching economic and political consequences. It has brought about some economic convergence between poor and rich countries; but it increased inequality within both poor and rich countries. In the developed world, the benefits accrued mainly to large owners of financial capital, who constitute less than 1% of the population. The lack of redistributive policies is the main source of the dissatisfaction that democracy’s opponents have exploited. But there were other contributing factors as well, particularly in Europe.

I was an avid supporter of the European Union from its inception. I regarded it as the embodiment of the idea of an open society: an association of democratic states willing to sacrifice part of their sovereignty for the common good. It started out at as a bold experiment in what Popper called “piecemeal social engineering.” The leaders set an attainable objective and a fixed timeline and mobilized the political will needed to meet it, knowing full well that each step would necessitate a further step forward. That is how the European Coal and Steel Community developed into the EU.

But then something went woefully wrong. After the Crash of 2008, a voluntary association of equals was transformed into a relationship between creditors and debtors, where the debtors had difficulties in meeting their obligations and the creditors set the conditions the debtors had to obey. That relationship has been neither voluntary nor equal.

Germany emerged as the hegemonic power in Europe, but it failed to live up to the obligations that successful hegemons must fulfill, namely looking beyond their narrow self-interest to the interests of the people who depend on them. Compare the behavior of the US after WWII with Germany’s behavior after the Crash of 2008: the US launched the Marshall Plan, which led to the development of the EU; Germany imposed an austerity program that served its narrow self-interest.

Before its reunification, Germany was the main force driving European integration: it was always willing to contribute a little bit extra to accommodate those putting up resistance. Remember Germany’s contribution to meeting Margaret Thatcher’s demands regarding the EU budget?

But reuniting Germany on a 1:1 basis turned out to be very expensive. When Lehman Brothers collapsed, Germany did not feel rich enough to take on any additional obligations. When European finance ministers declared that no other systemically important financial institution would be allowed to fail, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, correctly reading the wishes of her electorate, declared that each member state should look after its own institutions. That was the start of a process of disintegration.

After the Crash of 2008, the EU and the eurozone became increasingly dysfunctional. Prevailing conditions became far removed from those prescribed by the Maastricht Treaty, but treaty change became progressively more difficult, and eventually impossible, because it couldn’t be ratified. The eurozone became the victim of antiquated laws; much-needed reforms could be enacted only by finding loopholes in them. That is how institutions became increasingly complicated, and electorates became alienated.

The rise of anti-EU movements further impeded the functioning of institutions. And these forces of disintegration received a powerful boost in 2016, first from Brexit, then from the election of Trump in the US, and on December 4 from Italian voters’ rejection, by a wide margin, of constitutional reforms.

Democracy is now in crisis. Even the US, the world’s leading democracy, elected a con artist and would-be dictator as its president. Although Trump has toned down his rhetoric since he was elected, he has changed neither his behavior nor his advisers. His cabinet comprises incompetent extremists and retired generals.

What lies ahead?

I am confident that democracy will prove resilient in the US. Its Constitution and institutions, including the fourth estate, are strong enough to resist the excesses of the executive branch, thus preventing a would-be dictator from becoming an actual one.

But the US will be preoccupied with internal struggles in the near future, and targeted minorities will suffer. The US will be unable to protect and promote democracy in the rest of the world. On the contrary, Trump will have greater affinity with dictators. That will allow some of them to reach an accommodation with the US, and others to carry on without interference. Trump will prefer making deals to defending principles. Unfortunately, that will be popular with his core constituency.

I am particularly worried about the fate of the EU, which is in danger of coming under the influence of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose concept of government is irreconcilable with that of open society. Putin is not a passive beneficiary of recent developments; he worked hard to bring them about. He recognized his regime’s weakness: it can exploit natural resources but cannot generate economic growth. He felt threatened by “color revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine, and elsewhere. At first, he tried to control social media. Then, in a brilliant move, he exploited social media companies’ business model to spread misinformation and fake news, disorienting electorates and destabilizing democracies. That is how he helped Trump get elected.

The same is likely to happen in the European election season in 2017 in the Netherlands, Germany, and Italy. In France, the two leading contenders are close to Putin and eager to appease him. If either wins, Putin’s dominance of Europe will become a fait accompli.

I hope that Europe’s leaders and citizens alike will realize that this endangers their way of life and the values on which the EU was founded. The trouble is that the method Putin has used to destabilize democracy cannot be used to restore respect for facts and a balanced view of reality.

With economic growth lagging and the refugee crisis out of control, the EU is on the verge of breakdown and is set to undergo an experience similar to that of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Those who believe that the EU needs to be saved in order to be reinvented must do whatever they can to bring about a better outcome.

The article is riddled with lies, but even so, it is clear that the globalists are getting increasingly worried. And well they should. The rising tide of nationalism is going to kill their evil utopian dreams as dead as the League of Nations. The European nations will be greatly blessed if they are so fortunate as to find leaders half as effective, and half as genuinely devoted to their nations, as the Russians are to have Vladimir Putin.

What Soros calls "the open society" is a fraud being marketed by the globalist elite to mask their true objectives of rule by an international aristocracy. There are few institutions more openly anti-democratic than the EU, which subverts even democracies that don't belong to it. If the US was genuinely interested in spreading democracy abroad, its first order of business should be to invade Brussels.

History never ended. Liberal democracy - especially in its bizarrely contorted limited modern form - has completely failed.  The immigrant-riddled US political system is one financial failure away from collapse. How painful it must be to be reaching the end of one's road in the knowledge that all of one's works will be undone within a single generation.

The Saker has some relevant comments:

Poor “EUans” (my own word for the European zombies who believed in the Bilderberger’s European Union): they are now, how shall I put it politely, totally “frigged”? Not only did the British people defy the Empire and vote for a Brexit, but now the Imperial Homeland has “backstabbed” them by electing a patriot who is not interested in maintaining the global empire (or so he says, at least for the time being). At the same time, the so-called “refugee crisis” is bringing several crucial EU nations to the brink of a civil war (France for example) while all the efforts of the elites to blame Russia for it all end up in abject failures. Just check out this hilarious article in the British Sun which accuses Russia of, I kid you not, “organizing sex attacks in Germany“!! True, we already had the “Serbian Chetniks using rape as a weapon of ethnic cleansing” and “Gaddafi distributing Viagra to his soldiers to rape opposition supporters” but Putin ordering refugees to rape women in Germany is the best, so to speak. And just in case the unthinkable happens in Germany, the Germans have already warned that Russian hackers might steal the election in Germany. If this was not so utterly disgusting it would be hilarious. The bottom line is this: the entire EU project is morally completely bankrupt, each EU member state is now in a deep political crisis and the so-called “elites” are scrambling to find a response to what appears to be an inevitable collapse of the EU-order over Europe.