The end of Star Wars

Cataline does not recommend The Rise of Skywalker:

The Rise of Skywalker shows every sign of having been repeatedly dismembered and put together again in the editing room, like a patchwork Frankenstein of a movie. Various versions of scenes were cut, then recut. Then slapped together into a final cut. Then pulled apart again when that version tested badly. Then various teams went back to editing mines to try to cobble together, something else slightly more pleasing testing gods.

It was a very surreal experience to watch this cinematic train wreck. I wasn’t angry like I was when I saw The Last Jedi because all of my disappointments had been front-loaded because almost all of the leaks were accurate. What I saw was hideous but there were no hideous surprises because I had done all of my groaning and eye-rolling well in advance. I was calm and resigned.

This is your spoiler alert but I suspect you already know most of the horrors that lie beneath this sentence already.

The movie starts with the standard title followed by a screen crawl that tells you almost nothing. There is has been a galaxy-wide transmission from Palpatine. Remember him. The guy Darth Vader threw down the light shaft in Return of the Jedi?

Well, it turns out that Anakin Skywalker’s entire redemption story arc was a complete waste of his life and your time because Palpatine survived being chucked into a bottomless pit and then getting blown up in a Deathstar explosion.

Trevor Lynch didn't like it any better:

Even I didn’t expect Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker to be this bad. It is simply a terrible movie: derivative, incoherent, arbitrary, superficial, and deeply boring and uninvolving—despite, or maybe because of, the frenetic action sequences, dazzling duels, and effects so special they’ll leave carbon scoring on your eyeballs.

The Rise of Skywalker is 2 hours, 22 minutes long, which is long enough, but it feels even longer. I saw it in a half-empty theatre, and when Harrison Ford showed up on the screen, a whole row of people began streaming toward the exits. It would have been the last straw for me too, but I had my duty to you, dear reader, to sustain me....

Since Abrams and Johnson managed to remake and mock the whole original trilogy in only two films, Abrams was in an uncomfortable position in The Rise of Skywalker: he might have to actually come up with something original. Of course he tries to minimize the shock of doing something really new by bringing back the original cast some more. Luke and Han Solo are both dead, but Luke comes back as a ghost and Han as a figment of his son’s imagination. Carrie Fisher really is dead, but Abrams cleverly incorporates unused footage from the first movie. He also finds Billy Dee Williams in carbonite to reprise the role of Lando Calrissian. But the greatest surprise is that he resurrects Emperor Palpatine.

Yes, I know, the last time we saw Emperor Palpatine, he was thrown down a shaft in the second Death Star, followed by a big explosion that we interpreted as the release of malign energies when he went splat at the bottom, followed by the destruction of the whole damn Death Star, to add an even greater air of finality.

But, as in the Roadrunner cartoons, when Wile E. Coyote falls to his death through a portable hole, or blows himself up with a bomb, or gets an anvil dropped on his head, only to be magically resurrected moments later for further adventures with the bird, Palpatine is back to spare Jar Jar Abrams the necessity of coming up with a new villain after Rian Johnson casually dispensed with Snoke.

The trouble is that, for all his Gungans and Ewoks and juvenile dialogue, George Lucas’ Star Wars still had a bit more realism and existential heft and credibility than Roadrunner cartoons.

As has been my custom with every Star Wars movie since The Phantom Menace, I will honor my childhood affection for the original film by refusing to see the latest.

A linguistic blow to multiculturalism

It is becoming abundantly clear that not only is it impossible for people of different cultures to successfully live together, it is not possible to correctly understand cross-cultural communication even when both sides think they are speaking the same language:

Many languages have words whose meanings seem so specific and nuanced that there’s no way to translate them; they can only be imported wholesale. Consider the German “schadenfreude,” the pleasure derived from another’s misfortune, or “sehnsucht,” a sort of deep yearning for an alternative life.

Those kinds of emotion words often feel rooted in the culture from which they emerged, said Asifa Majid, a cognitive scientist at the University of York in England. She pointed to the feeling of “awumbuk,” which Baining people in Papua Guinea experience when their guests depart after an overnight stay. It leaves people listless, she wrote in a commentary that accompanies the study, something akin to a “social hangover.”

Yet many languages also have words that English speakers might think of as “basic” emotions — love, hate, anger, fear, sadness, happiness. Early theories, influenced by Charles Darwin and pegged to shared biological structures in humans, suggest there are certain universal emotions that serve as the source material for all others, as primary colors might be blended to create many new shades.

But just as later work has suggested that different cultures do not always categorize color in the same ways, there’s a growing understanding that even those supposedly “primary” emotions may hold their own meanings and nuances in different cultures that aren’t directly translatable.

Good fences make good neighbors. And strong borders make friendly relations possible.

SocialGalactic and the Burn Unit

With so much of the recent focus on Unauthorized, I want to make it clear that every current member of the Infogalactic Burn Unit will be receiving a Bronze or better membership of SocialGalactic 2.0. Precisely where the line between Bronze and Silver will be drawn has not yet been determined. We will do this AFTER we get through the Unauthorized Premium subscribers this coming week, but before we move on to the Basic subscribers.

The SG2 community is going to be sizable on this basis alone, so please be patient as it is going to take us a while to work through the literally thousands of eligible members.

We very much appreciate the Burn Unit's commitment to keeping the lights on.

Gammas gonna gamma, part 532

Deltora Bear writes to the Kurgan on some social media platform or another:

Hey Kurgan, just letting you know that Owen completely lost the plot. He betrayed his OG bears. ALL of them. The ones that asked logical questions about UnauthorizedTV that is. Even for defending those that questioned. I got banned by him myself for asking why this guy Captain Cutler was banned on sight even though he rarely participated with Owen's DLive streams. Just go and look yourself and see how he behaved in his latest stream. I'm done with Vox as well because I don't trust his true intentions but you know more than me about that. I've been with you for months and trust that you're an honest man and will perhaps do right if something's up.

The Kurgan responds, kurganly:

Why are you telling me?

I’m not Owen's dad or priest or anything. I don't really have the time to watch his streams, especially lately, but that aside, I'm not the Internet policeman. If you don't want to watch Owen anymore then don't. I’m not clear why you think telling me is required. Ditto Vox and what Vox does.

I am however intrigued about how you don't trust his TRUE INTENTIONS! You have a magic ball that shows you everyone else's but not his? And if not... what could his true intentions possibly be? Poison the water supply of Gotham? Expose Jordan Peterson as a drug-addled fraud?

What dastardly evil deed do you think he's plotting? Global domination? The eradication of Gammas? Pray do tell, I am curious.

I wonder to whom Deltora Bear will go to complain about the Kurgan? It's becoming abundantly clear that the most grievous sin a man can commit in the eyes of the average Gamma is to fail to take the Gamma as seriously as he takes himself.

The sad thing is that the Gamma never grasps that everyone else, especially all the women, are not only not appalled by the way he has been treated, they are actively applauding his banishment.

This certainly looks promising

I was alerted by several readers about some recent changes at a certain social technology company. After review by some of the LLoE members, a consensus conclusion was reached.

Item One: Patreon has new terms of use. But the effective date is more than a little... odd. I've never seen anything like it. Neither had anyone else.

Effective immediately for users joining Patreon on or after December 20th, 2019. Effective for existing users on, and applicable to claims not yet asserted by, January 1st, 2020.

Item Two: Patreon follows the JAMS policy on Consumer Arbitrations, which, as a California corporation, it is required to do.

For creators and patrons who are consumers, we also follow the JAMS Policy on Consumer Arbitrations Pursuant to Pre-Dispute Clauses Minimum Standards of Procedural Fairness for consumer arbitrations done under these terms. For the purpose of an arbitration subject to the consumer standards, if any portion of these terms do not follow that standard, that portion is severed from these terms.

Item Three: Patreon doesn't understand how California law applies to consumer arbitrations or the JAMS policy it claims to follow. That, or they're hoping against hope that no one else does.

You may not bring a claim against us for suspending or terminating another person’s account, and you agree you will not bring such a claim. If you try to bring such a claim, you are responsible for the damages caused, including attorneys fees and costs.

Item Four: JAMS, however, does.

In California, the arbitration provision may not require the consumer to pay the fees and costs incurred by the opposing party if the consumer does not prevail.

Conclusion: Patreon already has a pretty good idea they are going to lose. Badly.

Little Nicky debate challenge, take three

A Nickler pushes a false narrative:

It is very telling that Vox Day 'challenges' Nick Fuentes to debate when Nick is also streaming. He doesn't have the decency...balls....to ask Nick himself. He streams it and waits for people to send Nick messages about it livr on his own streams. It shows Vox is a snake.

 Dear Nick

I have been informed that you are willing to debate me so long as the subject is not related to the Holocaust. Very well. I propose a written debate concerning your following assertion:

Americans have to live with multiracialism.

I suggest we limit our entries to 2,500 words each, with no more than three entries apiece. As you will be arguing in the affirmative, I am willing to let you have the first word. I also suggest that we agree either party is permitted to publish the entire debate verbatim.

Please email me your first entry at your earliest convenience. I will post it at my blog without modification or comment.

Regards,

Vox

Another Nickler pushed another false narrative:

Vox Day didn't want to debate.  That's why he made it a written debate on a topic Nick isn't interested in.  He's afraid of Nick's ability to use rhetoric which is why he wanted to make it in writing

To which I responded by sending the following email to Nick Fuentes:

Dear Nick,

A number of your followers apparently believe I am afraid to debate you live online because you are, and I quote, "a master of rhetoric". This is not even remotely true. I don't fear you in the slightest.

So, I am happy to challenge you to a live debate on the same subject I previously suggested, namely, your contention that Americans have to live with multiracialism.

If you would like to do it on the Killstream with Ethan Ralph, that is fine with me.

Regards,

Vox

Does anyone seriously doubt that Little Nicky will behave exactly like Ben Shapiru and run away a third time? I don't give a flying fragment of an airborne rodent's posterior about him, and I certainly don't fear a disrespectful little would-be media whore who doesn't have my education, my experience, or my intelligence.

He can make all the excuses he wants about optics, irrelevance, or hirsuteness. But everyone knows perfectly well why he is running away from me. I truly don't care if he shows up to debate or if he doesn't. If he does, I'll deal with him exactly like I've dealt with every previous opponent. If he doesn't, he'll continue to be completely irrelevant to me.

Medieval History 101: Episode XII

Dr. Rachel Fulton Brown presents the Unauthorized community with a Christmas present that is also a harbinger of things to come next spring.

Once upon a time, the people of England had a mythology rich in symbolism and metaphor pointing to the ultimate truth. There was one story in particular which captured the imagination of poets, the story of a star that entered into time and lifted the people of the world out of darkness. The star’s name was Earendel—but what did his name mean? Who among men was so wise that he could unravel the riddle and make clear the mystery? J.R.R. Tolkien believed he knew! O come, O come, and learn the story of the star!

The episode guide is here.

Mailvox: a gamma's confession

A gamma explains the nature of gamma spiraling:

You were right at identifying Gamma in me, I knew it at the time, but I couldn't help myself. It was an outburst. So I apologize for coming at you with the wrong motivations and for being driven by my ego.

It's interesting how Gamma behavior undercuts and discredits the Gamma's own interests.

I find in myself I can start out honestly, but I get set off by a spiraling imagination which overtakes me and makes me emotional. It causes me to instantly hate anyone who slights me because of fear and weakness, and not being firmly grounded in forgiveness, love and God. I interpret their actions in the worst possible way, and hair-trigger react to it into a murderously aggressive stance. There is always a partial awareness of the unfoundedness of this overreaction, but it is a survival instinct like an abused dog lashes out, based in the emotional unsteadiness and mindlessness which sweeps me off my feet. Shame and knowing subconsciously that I have lost myself piles on more emotional pain which forces me deeper into committing into that state.

Ego te absolvo. This honest admission and description of the process illustrates the fundamental lie of the typical gamma posturing. Their pretense at superiority is intrinsically false, and the fact that those of us who understand the SSH know it only makes them spiral all the faster.

The secret federal Stasi

It appears The Storm is coming sooner rather than later, as AC's longtime insistence that the FBI and other federal agencies were corrupted and US citizens have been subject to a massive private surveillance state is being confirmed through recent declassifications:

On March 9, 2016, Department of Justice (DOJ) oversight personnel learned that the FBI had been employing outside contractors who had access to raw Section 702 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) data, and retained that access after their work for the FBI was completed.

This information was disclosed in a 99-page FISA court ruling on April 26, 2017, that was declassified by Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

That wasn’t an isolated incident and the improper access granted to outside contractors “seems to have been the result of deliberate decisionmaking” (footnote – page 87).

The FISA court noted the “FBI’s apparent disregard of minimization rules” and questioned “whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported.”

On the same day of the discovery of the FBI’s use of private contractors, FBI lawyer Lisa Page sent a text to FBI agent Peter Strzok: “Need to try to fix a HUGE who f-up.”

AC himself explains what appears to have happened:

What has Q said? “We have it all.” “FISA Declass will bring down the house.” “This thing is bigger than you could possibly believe.”

What have I said? Cabal has amassed detailed surveillance files on every American, including conversations, intimate moments, and embarrassing details gathered from within the most private parts of their private homes, where they thought they had sanctuary to relax. This is what Q is saying. They have got it all. There is only one “it all” in this game. It is the whole ball of wax, the whole enchilada, the big database with all the files on everyone in America. Everything else is nothing by comparison.

I thought it was gathered off the record, by private companies that hired contractors which would shield it behind the Fourth Amendment. But then, I thought the spying on Trump would have been done by a private sector company with plausibly deniable ties to the Cabal.

I was wrong. These dumbasses used official government resources and signed official orders sanctioning the use. I hear R. Lee Ermey catching the recruit who wisecracked, with his eyes bugging out saying, “Oh, now you are FUCKED! I’ve got you! I know who you are! I know your fucking name!” They put their fucking names on it.  

This is bigger than Watergate + 9/11 + the Bay of Pigs + almost every other conspiracy theory you can name combined. It is also why you're seeing definite signs of panic and desperation everywhere from the House of Representatives to the mainstream media to the boardrooms of the Fortune 500. This reaches from the heart of the Swamp in Washington DC to Silicon Valley and Seattle, Washington. In East Germany, it came out after the Wall fell that one-fifth of the population was involved in the surveillance of the other four-fifths of the population; now keep in mind that due to the mathematical reach of the FISA warrants, the 825 million surveillance orders issued actually exceeds the 320 million population of the USA.

Now we know how and why Google and Amazon and Facebook got so big, so fast. They were the corporate arm of the surveillance state. No wonder their top executives are retiring and running and applying for citizenship in non-extradition treaty countries like New Zealand.

Clusterdebacle

Things are rapidly going from bad to worse for the House Democrats and their problematic "impeachment":

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he and Sen. Charles Schumer haven't been able over the terms of a Senate impeachment trial, after the two party's traded angry accusations about how the chamber will proceed.

McConnell, who earlier Thursday threatened to cancel an impeachment trial for President Donald Trump, described the state of play on the Senate floor after meeting with Schumer, the minority leader.

'We remain at an impasse on these logistics,' Schumer told colleagues.

'My colleague wants a special pre-trial guarantee of certain witnesses whom the House Democrats themselves did not bother to pursue as they assembled their case. Or he wants to proceed without giving any organizational resolution forever,' McConnell said....

Pelosi has to transmit the articles of impeachment and appoint 'managers' to prosecute the president. She offered no timeline, saying she wanted to see the Senate's plan for a 'fair trial,' effectively holding the articles over McConnell's and Trump's heads.

Her delay came after several House Democrats took up an idea advocated by Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe, who has said the public 'has a right to observe a meaningful trial rather than simply learn that the result is a verdict of not guilty.'

He advocated the idea of delaying sending over the articles to the Senate as a leverage point to try to secure better terms.

Another Harvard Law professor, Noah Feldman, penned an op-ed agreeing that the transmittal of impeachment articles is a crucial act in the process, and that until this happens, Trump technically hasn't been impeached.

An indefinite delay 'would pose a serious problem,' Feldman wrote.

'Impeachment as contemplated by the Constitution does not consist merely of the vote by the House, but of the process of sending the articles to the Senate for trial. Both parts are necessary to make an impeachment under the Constitution: The House must actually send the articles and send managers to the Senate to prosecute the impeachment. And the Senate must actually hold a trial.'

He added: 'If the House does not communicate its impeachment to the Senate, it hasn’t actually impeached the president. If the articles are not transmitted, Trump could legitimately say that he wasn’t truly impeached at all.'

This just keeps getting better and better....

They are everywhere

Imagine how much it would ruin the average SJWs day to come across one or two of these in the course of human events. Get your ELoE decals at Cyber.Fashion. They have the t-shirt too.

Impeachment posturing

Has anyone explained to House Democrats what happens if you hold your breath too long?

The future of the House’s impeachment case against President Trump hung in doubt on Thursday, after the third-ranking House Democrat raised the possibility that the chamber could permanently withhold the articles from the Senate if it did not get assurances of a fair trial.

The morning after the House impeached Mr. Trump nearly along party lines, Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, said he was willing to wait “as long as it takes” to transmit the two impeachment articles approved Wednesday night. The House charged Mr. Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to his campaign to pressure Ukraine to smear Democratic rivals.

“Until we can get some assurances from the majority leader that he is going to allow for a fair and impartial and trial to take place, we would be crazy to walk in there knowing he has set up a kangaroo court,” Mr. Clyburn said Thursday morning on CNN, referring to Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader.

His remarks came the morning after Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw the matter into doubt by telling reporters shortly after passage of the articles of impeachment that she might wait to transmit them to the Senate until she could determine whether the trial would be fair.

Fine. Let them hold onto the articles of impeachment as long as they like. The Senate does not answer to the House. The longer this Democrat clusterdebacle continues, the better it is for the god-emperor and the American people.

Forget the Senate vote

The god-emperor should simply declare martial law and put an end to the entire would-be coup now. There is far more cause for martial law today, with a lawless House of Representatives and federal agencies full of confirmed criminals, than there was during Civil War 1.0. Soon we're going to discover if the Great Negotiator can fight or not.

This isn't a black pill. Americans are fortunate to have the god-emperor in office. Most Republicans would have caved already. I don't think President Trump will do so. But I'm also not certain that he is ready to take the necessary steps. Yet. But he's going to have to do it sooner or later if he wants to save America.

Articles of impeachment vote

Discuss amongst yourselves.

The roots of British autodidacticism

This is an interesting story about the history of elite education trickling down to the working class in 19th century Britain:

There were many cheap mass-market series of ‘classics for the masses’ in the 19th century, and organised working-class educators made full use of them. In London, the Working Men’s College became nationally famous under Sir John Lubbock, its principal between 1883 and 1899. Lubbock drew up a list of the 100 books it was most important for a working man to read. The proportion of classical authors is remarkable: Homer, Hesiod, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Plutarch’s Lives, Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, Augustine’s Confessions, Plato’s Apology, Crito and Phaedo, Demosthenes’ De Corona, Xenophon’s Memorabilia and Anabasis, Cicero’s On Duties, On Friendship and On Old Age, Virgil, plays by all the tragedians, Aristophanes’ Knights and Clouds, Herodotus, Thucydides, Tacitus’ Germania, and Livy. In addition, two famous works on ancient history, Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-89) and George Grote’s A History of Greece (1846-56), make it on to the list as necessary reading for any educated person, along with the most popular novel then in existence set in antiquity, Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Last Days of Pompeii (1834). After 1887, the classical riches on the bookshelf of the working-class self-educator can, in large measure, be attributed to Lubbock’s ideal curriculum.

Yet the standout name in translated classics is the Everyman’s Library series, launched by Joseph Malaby Dent in 1906. Everyman’s printed 1,000 titles in its first 50 years. Forty-six are listed as ‘classical’ in genre – most standard works of Greek and philosophy, poetry and prose, from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (the first classical text released), through the dramatists and epic poets to Aristotle’s Metaphysics, the 1,000th volume published.

Dent was the son of a Darlington painter-decorator who joined a Mutual Improvement Society and caught the literature bug. With his editor Ernest Rhys, he founded the Everyman label. Born into a middle-class family, Rhys began his working life as a coal engineer at Langley Park in County Durham, where he sought to enrich the lives of his co-workers. To the consternation of his conservative line manager, who considered mineworkers to be interested only in drinking and gambling, he established a library in a derelict worker’s cottage. Plato’s Republic was on the inaugural reading list.

It's a worthy legacy. It would be excellent indeed if we were able to do something similar with Castalia; even today one can educate oneself with an Everyman's Library. How many of us, with our expensive university diplomas, are truly as well-educated, or even as well-read, as those working men of yesteryear?

The list of Lubbock's 100 most important books can be reviewed here. It's interesting, as when I contemplate the 100 books selected by Franklin Library and published in the 1980s, there are considerably too many plays and more than a few books that don't even strike me as the best book by the author. When DH Lawrence and Walt Whitman make the list while Sun Tzu and Hermann Hesse don't, well, that just strikes me as hopelessly wrong.

Yawn

Another hit piece incoming. Apparently the "journalist" in question erroneously believes me to be a "white supremacist" and is under the impression that "Mongols" are of African descent.

Remember, these people genuinely believe they are our moral and intellectual superiors.

It's mildly amusing to observe the way they believe just one more slander will finally serve to discredit and disqualify me when the ten thousand previous slanders have failed. It simply doesn't matter what they say anymore. They could report that I personally slaughtered 37 people on Broadway with a letter opener shaped like a rabbit while screaming "blood for the Blood God" and I doubt we'd lose a single subscriber on Unauthorized or a single reader here. No one cares what they say anymore.

Needless to say, I have not spoken to them.

Speaking of gammas

On Tuesday, December 17 we were hit by multiple big DDoS attacks. Multiple prefixes were attacked. Needless to say, we dealt with it without any real trouble because we have been under constant cyberattack since Castalia House endorsed GamerGate in 2015.

The VFM have been instructed to track down the parties responsible while the LLoE is reviewing the applicable laws in the relevant legal jurisdictions. When we find them, we will file both civil and criminal charges.

In case you ever wondered why we don't disclose information about our operations and how they work, this should suffice to explain why. We don't talk much about these attacks, but we have been dealing with them every day for more than four years now.

"Please retract this smear"

Now this is funny. Evan Schulz wants me to "retract this smear" against him. And precisely what "smear" is that?

I have never been in contact with Davey Crocko, and am not attempting to be an insider "whisleblower". I am neither. I am not a bear, I am not VFM. All my interactions with Vox have been via email. All my YouTube comments are public and I stand by them. Please retract this smear.

So, Mr. Schulz believes a perfectly factual statement concerning the POSSIBILITY that he MIGHT be someone, posted with evidence of his direct connection to the individual concerned in the form of his comments on the latter's channel, is a smear, while he stands by the following false statements:

• "You are dead on with the scamming and ponzi scheme angle"
• "this grifting"
• "the constant grifting and lying"
• "many of us who respected Vox and have been involved with his projects in the past have become disillusioned"

He also asserted the following via email:

• "Either Owen is too dumb to realize this, or he is a malicious actor."
• "The remainder of the Bears that still put up with him are cultist sycophants."

Mr. Schulz appears to be too stupid to realize that he has very publicly published several false statements that are damaging to multiple persons' reputations, and that in doing so he has committed several acts of written defamation. In addition to those acts, he has also insulted every single Unauthorized, Castalia House, and Arkhaven customer, and the entire community of Bears.

As I told him in an email, the only one "fallaciously smearing" anyone is him. However, in the interest of accuracy, I have posted an update to the original post making it clear that he denies being the individual who emailed Owen's anklebiter and claimed to be VFM and an Annual member.

Unfortunately for Evan Schulz and his preference to not be a public figure, his defamatory statements are now part of the public record, and will be available to every friend, foe, family member, and prospective employer in perpetuity.

One thing that people tend to forget is that I've been a public figure for 26 years, ever since my weekly column began appearing, complete with my picture, in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. This means that I am very, very accustomed to dealing with all of the various problems and challenges and complications that entails in a way that most people are not. So, if you are a self-appointed critic, you just may want to think twice before getting into a written conflict with me, because I will never hesitate to ensure that your words will follow you around for the rest of your life.

I have had to deal with that for most of my adult life. Why do you think you shouldn't have to do the same?

Beyond authorized

"Greta Thunberg" is entirely an artificial media construction, and was designed to be a propaganda figure from the start.

Teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg is the subject of a forthcoming documentary film – made by a crew that has followed her since the early days of her school strike. Still believe her rise to fame was an accident?

Thunberg, recently crowned Time magazine’s Person of the Year, can add documentary film subject to her burgeoning resumé. The film, tentatively titled ‘Greta,’ was announced by Deadline on Monday for a 2020 Hulu premiere. Director Nathan Grossman has followed the young climate prodigy to the ends of the Earth, from her school-striking on the sidewalk in front of the Swedish Parliament, to the high seas aboard the $4mn racing yacht Malizia II. Grossman’s only other IMDB credit to date is a Swedish film titled “Köttets lustar” (or “Lusts of the Meat”), which, while it sounds pornographic, purports to be the story of one man “looking over his life as a carnivore.”

One might ask why, if Thunberg’s meteoric rise from her lonely sidewalk protests to hectoring the rulers of the world about her stolen future was as organic as it is presented, a documentary crew was already present to film her sitting alone on the pavement? It’s not like her parents have been trying to make her a celebrity since she was just 12 years old, only to have their exploitative TV show idea rejected by Swedish broadcaster SVT. Never mind, all that did happen.

Much like Jordan Peterson's "rise", there is absolutely nothing organic or genuine about Thunberg's otherwise inexplicably inescapable media presence. She's a useful tool to the globalist Prometheans in their bid to heal the world by ruling it.

Not 4GW... yet

William S. Lind explains why the current New World Disorder is a precursor to 4GW across the West rather than the phenomenon itself:

In more and more places, states are failing to maintain order but remain as vehicles of the New Class, the Establishment.  The Establishment runs the state, not to provide security of persons and property for all, but for its own benefit. It uses its control of the state to give itself careers, money (lots of it), power, prestige, etc.  It then employs these to exempt itself from the consequences of state failure, i.e., it lives in gated communities, its kids go to private schools and its jobs don’t get shipped overseas.

One of the interesting characteristics of the new world disorder is that it is coming primarily from the middle class.  The yellow vests are a striking example. But the young people filling the streets of Baghdad and Hong Kong are also often of middle class background.  They are college students or recent college graduates. They are taking to the streets because around the world, the middle class is under ever growing pressure.  College degrees no longer bring good jobs. Pensions and paychecks no longer last to the end of the month. Maintaining even a vestige of a middle class standard of living requires going even deeper into debt.  The state arose to provide security, but it now yields growing insecurity for the middle class.

So far, the disorder appears to be directed against the Establishment that runs the state, not the state itself.  That is why it is not Fourth Generation war. If it proves possible to boot the Establishment out and replace it with governors who serve the middle class instead of themselves, the state is likely to remain.  However, if the Establishment is able to hold on to power despite its failure in governance, then at some point people are likely to start giving up on the state itself. At that point we will be looking at 4GW, and lots of it.

One thing is already clear, however. The Establishment is not going to give up power voluntarily, regardless of how the electorate votes.

The critics rave!

I wonder who is still buying the obvious shill-o-ganda from the Devil Mouse? Besides, of course, the mainstream media.

It's the final film in the Skywalker saga that concludes the nine-film epic space opera. And critics were full of praise for Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker as they revealed their initial reactions to seeing the film at the Los Angeles premiere on Monday night.

While Disney has embargoed full reviews until Wednesday, those inside the three cinemas screening the film were so delighted they took to Twitter to give their spoiler-free thoughts on the film on Tuesday.

'I am absolutely blown away!' Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker received RAVE first reactions from critics as they gushed on Tuesday about the 'immensely satisfying' conclusion

Calling the J.J. Abrams-directed film an 'immensely satisfying', many critics claimed it was a 'fitting end' to the franchise. SlashFilm's Peter Scrietta gushed that 'JJ Abrams nailed it, as he added: 'He was able to bring a cohesive arc to this trilogy that feels like a fitting end to the saga as a whole. I'm so emotionally drained. Star Wars fans will be very happy.'

While SYFY Wire's Jenna Busch added: 'OH MY GOD! I am absolutely blown away! I've never been so satisfied by a film. This is the end of an era and a franchise that has defined my life and this did it justice in a way I didn't imagine it could. You WILL cry....'

Color me EXTREMELY dubious. Of course, I haven't seen a single Star Wars film since The Phantom Menace, so perhaps those who are more tolerant of bad cinema and terrible SF will genuinely be entertained.

What is good for the fake economy

Is good for the Fake Americans, but no one else in the USA.

According to official US government economic data, the US economy has been growing for 10.5 years since June of 2009. The reason that the US government can produce this false conclusion is that costs that are subtractions from GDP are not included in the measure. Instead, many costs are counted not as subtractions from growth but as additions to growth. For example, the penalty interest on a person’s credit card balance that results when a person falls behind his payments is counted as an increase in “financial services” and as an increase in Gross Domestic Product. The economic world is stood on its head.

It is aggregate demand that drives the economy. Payments made on a rise in interest rates on credit card balances from 19% to a 29% penalty rate reduce consumers’ ability to contribute to aggregate demand by purchasing goods and the services of doctors, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Contrary to logic, the fee is magically counted in the “financial services” category as a contributor to GDP growth. The extortion of a fee that reduces aggregate demand lowers GDP, but builds paper wealth in the financial services sector.

GDP growth is also artificially inflated by counting as GDP abstract concepts that do not produce income streams. For example, for homeowners the US Department of Commerce estimates the rental values of owner-occupied housing, that is, the amount owners would be paying if they rented instead of owned their homes, and counts this imputed rent as GDP.

These and other absurdities have caused economist Michael Hudson to conclude correctly that the “financial reality of how the U.S. economy works is no longer captured in GDP statistics.”

You may recall that I pointed out this sort of thing repeatedly back in 2008 and 2009. We have been living in the Great Depression 2.0 ever since, even though the massive financialization of the economy has managed to disguise that being exposed in the statistics.

This is why I no longer pay any attention to the statistics or comment upon them. CPI is fictitious, GDP is fictitious, and Z.1. has been rendered useless. It would be about as meaningful as commenting on the fictional economics of the post-imperial Star Wars universe.

The reason that the fake growth has to continue indefinitely is because once the paper gains are correctly written off and accounted for as losses, the whole structure begins to collapse.

A nonexistent insider

One of Big Bear's anklebiters is claiming that "a Vox Day insider" and "vfm member" is exposing all sorts of nonexistent scams and shenanigans on our part.

we dont trust him but let me share some private messages from a vfm member, paid member an someone who is our mole on the inside.

However, the individual that appears to be behind this baseless slander is one Evan Shulz, an Alt-Hero:Q backer who helped bounce the rubble before getting aggressively butthurt over the Owen Benjamin-Nick Fuentes drama. He is neither an "insider" nor is he VFM, as should be evident from his comments on the video linked above.

Evan Schulz
You are dead on with the scamming and ponzi scheme angle, and many of us who respected Vox and have been involved with his projects in the past have become disillusioned since this partnership with crazy Owen and the endless grift that has ensued.

Evan Schulz
I've followed his work for a number of years. His book SJWs Always Lie was quite influential. "What you have to understand" (spoken in Vox voice) is that this grifting and constant fund raising is new and out of character.

Evan Schulz
he was always a pompouse ass. But he had interesting insights on certain topics that he is well read on. If someone is an interesting thinker, I can overlook a bad personality. But the whole Owen partnership and the constant grifting and lying and counter signaling people who are doing good things is new and bizarre.

I was thinking that name sounded familiar and went to check my email. Sure enough, the search revealed an object lesson in why one MUST always excise the gammas from one's social circles, organizations, and even fan clubs. They are INEVITABLY treacherous, self-righteous little shits who will eventually seek to destroy whatever they cannot influence to their liking, no matter what "fans" or "supporters" they previously claimed to be.

7/14/2019 9:50 AM
Evan Schulz wrote:
Owen. I'll be blunt. This man is extremely reckless in attacking Nick Fuentes. The remainder of the Bears that still put up with him are cultist sycophants. To dox Nick's dad and so viciously attack him is putting Nick's safety at risk from deranged people. Either Owen is too dumb to realize this, or he is a malicious actor working against our worldview and interests. He has diminished your well deserved reputation. My advice is to cut ties sooner rather than later.

To which I responded after unbanning him - unwisely, as it turns out - from the Darkstream chat, from which he'd been banned for repeating a question to which he'd already received an answer.

Evan,

What on Earth do you think you were doing by repeating your question - which I'd already answered - on the stream? First, it's not your business. Second, you're wrong.

Third, how long will it take for you to admit you are wrong when Owen fails to turn on me? Two weeks? Two months?

Either way, this simply isn't your concern.

Best regards,

Vox

7/16/2019, 5:58 PM
Evan Schulz wrote:
I apologize for addressing it publicly. In hindsight that was not very mature of me. For some reason I had not received notification of your email response. 

That being said, I stand by what I said. My main concern was not your reputation, but the wreckless nature of Owen's behavior and the damage it does to the nationalist movement.

I'm happy to agree to disagree on this one. I still have a tremendous amount of respect for your body of work and original thinking.

Note that it is now December, five months after this email exchange, and we are still awaiting Owen's supposedly imminent heel turn. And the prediction is more than a little ironic in light of Evan's own rapid devolution from a tremendously respectful AH:Q backer to a publicly slanderous anklebiter who is henceforth banned from this blog, from the Darkstream, and from all of our collective projects.Perhaps he will find some modicum of consolation in his newfound status with his fellow anklebiters.

The lesson, as always, is this: BANISH YOUR GAMMAS. And in the unlikely event there actually is an Annual Unauthorized member who is discontent with the service that we are providing or believes that we have lied about it, rest assured that we will not hesitate to refund the entire amount to you regardless of when you happened to subscribe.

UPDATE: This excerpt was particularly amusing in light of the YouTuber's complete failure to grasp the obvious implications of the situation.

Just like he's saying with a Patreon lawsuit, just like he's saying about suing YouTube, he said the same thing about IndieGoGo, yet he's still using that company. And like with YouTube, he's still using that company. There's not gonna be a lawsuit against these companies.

His claims of engagement declining significantly are true, because the mods have done an excellent job of methodically beating down and banning the trolls. What he leaves out is that since the Darkstream's peak engagement was set on February 25, watch time is up 119 percent and average view duration is up 7 percent.

UPDATE: Evan Schulz denies being the fake insider who emailed Davey Crocko and claimed to be VFM and an Unauthorized subscriber. I can't confirm that, but I can confirm he is neither. He writes:

I have never been in contact with Davey Crocko, and am not attempting to be an insider "whisleblower". I am neither. I am not a bear, I am not VFM. All my interactions with Vox have been via email. All my YouTube comments are public and I stand by them. Please retract this smear.

A pity conservatives don't follow suit

PewDiePie is done with Twitter now too:

On Sunday he announced he will be quitting YouTube in 2020.

And a day later, PewDiePie wiped his Twitter account of all its tweets, keeping the profile there only to 'prevent fake accounts'.

The online sensation, 30, had been using Twitter regularly but unfollowed all of the accounts he once followed.

Good for him. Twitter is a cesspool. And on a not-entirely-unrelated note, the first SG2 invites to Unauthorized Annual members have gone out. The SG1 subscribers will be invited next. Once all the Unauthorized members have been invited, we'll look at opening it up to everyone who is interested. This is a process that will take several weeks at a minimum, and we want to go step-by-step in order to manage the initial influx, so please be patient.

And yes, Castalia Deluxe members will also be receiving Bronze SG2 subscriptions in due course. Complete with a special book icon for the readers....

Three days left

There are only three days left to help Zammy, the giant sheepadoodle, to cross the finish line. He's at 80 percent right now.

UPDATE: Zammy is go! Thanks to everyone who made it possible.

Another Democrat defects

That makes two in one day:

State Senator John Yudichak of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania said that he will be switching his registration to become an Independent. He will caucus with the Republican majority. Yudichak has criticized an increasingly liberal Democratic caucus that has led to this decision.... Yudichak’s announcement comes less than 24 hours since we learned that New Jersey Democratic Congressman Jeff Van Drew has also made a decision that speaks volumes.

No wonder the god-emperor welcomes the impeachment process. His enemies are literally shrinking before his eyes.

Panic in the Deep State

Reading the media tea leaves:

Former CIA officer and counter-intelligence expert Kevin Shipp says that former Obama Administration Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder gave a big Deep State panic signal when he wrote in an Op-Ed last week in the Washington Post trashing current AG William Barr and his top prosecutor John Durham.

Shipp explains, “This is very significant. We all remember that Holder was Obama’s right hand man. Eric Holder was Barack Obama’s enforcer. The fact that Holder comes out this quickly after the Inspector General (IG) Horowitz Report comes out . . . and makes this veiled threat against Durham’s reputation. The fact that Eric Holder came out and made this statement is a clear indication to me they are running scared. We have to understand it was Eric Holder that Barack Obama used to target the heads of corporations that spoke out publicly about Barack Obama. We know Holder was held in ‘Contempt of Congress.’ He spied on AP reporters, ran guns to drug cartels and blacked out the information. He spied on over a hundred journalists, and on and on we go. . . . They (Deep State) are convinced there are going to be indictments. Secondly, there is AG Barr’s outrage over (IG) Horowitz’s report and what it did not do. He made statements that there was spying and actions by government officials that need to be criminally looked into. Barr’s outrage over this shows me that there are going to be indictments, and that he is taking this seriously. Again, when Holder comes out and puts out this bombshell in the Washington Post, which is another indication that indictments are coming. John Brennan, former Obama Administration CIA Director, is going to be at the top of the list.”

I find this credible because it is entirely obvious that the DNC-media-federal bureaucracy complex is observably in a complete tizzy about something. What that something is, we do not know, but it may have something to do with what the Q Army calls The Storm. Or it could be something else, but regardless, they are clearly terrified about something that is currently in the works.

Relax, McRapey

John Scalzi looks back over the last ten years of his literary career and devotes nearly one-third of the article - 31.6 percent - to his critics:

Any discussion of my career over the last decade needs to include the antipathy of me by a certain cadre of right-wing SF writers and fans, a group which overlaps (considerably) with the “Sad/Rabid Puppies” who publicly shat themselves so dramatically during the middle bit of the decade with regard to the Hugo Awards and other aspects of the business and community of SF/F literature. I noticed the first real push of the antipathy after Redshirts won the Hugo, and certain dudes suggested that Redshirts won because I had sucked up to the Social Justice Warriors sufficiently, rather than because, say, it was a popular book riffing off a beloved science fiction franchise in a clever and affectionate way, written by a writer who’d been nominated for Best Novel a few times before.

In the full bloom of the Puppy beclownery there was more of the same, a fair amount of snide discussion of my sexuality and gender, and general allegations that my sales numbers were inflated and/or propped up by bulk purchases by my publisher, which, by the way, was doing terribly and would soon be out of business. My personal favorite bit of this was when there was a long discussion about how my 2014 novel Lock In had been a massive sales failure and that Tor was about to drop me as an author; this discussion was happening simultaneously with me negotiating with Tor for my multi-book, multi-year, multimillion-dollar contract (which included not one but two sequels to Lock In). When the contract was announced, the narrative shifted to how much more I would have made self-publishing, and then later how I’d never really make as much money as the public figure of the contract. Which, well, okay, dudes. In time most of them have left off this nonsense, but there are a few of them still out there on this bullshit — why, I was chucklingly misgendered just this week!

What is it about me that bugged and in some cases still bugs these dudes? If you ask them they will give you all sorts of reasons, but having dealt with this nonsense for a better part of a decade I’ll tell you it’s mostly envy, and frustration about the state of their own careers, which they feel should be better because they write the sort of science fiction they’ve always loved and assume others still love as well. And which I also do, so why the hell do I get the big contracts and they’re (mostly) left to scrape by? There has to be something else involved — thus the secret cabal of SJWs, bulk purchases, also I’m gay and/or trans and thus not a man at all, hur hur hur. Add to this the fact that at least a couple of these dudes legit dislike me for other reasons (most of which boil down to the fact they can’t argue their way out of a paper bag and at one point or another I pointed that out to them in public), and some of them just happen to be bigoted as fuck, and you’ve got a fairly toxic mix of resentment and complete bullshit.

This hasn’t affected my career in any meaningful way — see the summary earlier in the piece — but on a personal level it could be tiresome. I’m guilty of taunting some of these dickheads on occasion, because they deserve the taunting and because I know my successes irritate the shit out of them. But mostly I’m glad it’s largely done and over with, save a few stragglers. I think after a certain point it just became difficult to argue that I was a failure, and that their doing so just accentuated their own relative positions, which they preferred not to do. And also, after a certain point you do just have to get on with your life and write your things. To the extent that some of them are doing that, good for them. Those that aren’t, well. Bless your hearts, dudes.

As always, Ol' Johnny is lying and attempting to retroactively spin the narrative when he thinks no one is going to call him on it. No one was ever saying that he was a failure - quite to the contrary, he is almost certainly science fiction's most financially successful grifter of the last fifty years.

What we said, and still say to this day, and what we can prove, is that he is a serial liar, a fraud, and a literary mediocrity. That's all there ever was to it. And the reason no one even bothers to criticize him any more is because it is obvious to everyone that he is over and done. He can relax now. The hounds, like everyone else, have lost interest in him.

NFL Week 15

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Let Scotland go

Boris Johnson and the Tories are making a massive blunder if they fail to support the Scottish National Party and embrace Scottish independence:

Already this morning the Twittersphere buzzes with talk of a renewed Scottish independence campaign, while the SNP yesterday announced its support for another referendum if a "material change in circumstances" arose between Scotland and the greater union. Surely a landslide victory by the Tories — who are widely disliked by the Scots — and a flashing green light for a deeply unpopular Brexit represent exactly such a change.

Scotland and England are not magically joined at the hip. If the Scots don't want Brexit, don't want Boris Johnson, and don't want the Tories, who says the current political makeup of the UK is forever and unchanging? Political arrangements are not something to impose on reluctant, disbelieving people. If we favor independence and political self-determination only when we like the results, the only liberty on offer is the liberty to agree. But political universalism is an abstraction, and an arrogant one at that.

If Scots choose Holyrood over Westminster, or even Brussels over Holyrood, who are we to object?

Given the way in which the Scots have been the primary engine of left-wing power in the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson can secure not only the restoration of British sovereignty, but a multi-generational defeat of the Labour Left by excising the Scottish nation from the British crown.

This will, of course, mark the penultimate stage in the end of the British empire, but the empire has been shrinking steadily since the beginning of WWII. And there is absolutely no point fighting the nationalist trend in favor of a dying and discredited imperialism.

The Scots deserve to rule themselves. Let Scotland go!

Band-Maid - Blooming

Their new single is good. Kanami goes off, not once, but twice, which is cool. I suspect I may actually end up listening more to Conqueror than Metal Galaxy.

Mailvox: Kurgan-Dyer debate

I will wait to read the transcript before even attempting to develop an opinion of the recent debate between Jay Dyer and The Kurgan, but this was a summary sent to me by one witness to it:

It was an interesting watch for me as an Ilk that has consumed a sizable amount of Dyer's content and appreciates his niche.  Similar to you, my church background has been American Protestant Evangelical. Lately I've been studying the Orthodox faith, due in no small part to Jay's content.

Kurgan has accused Jay of being a lying gamma sperg. What I witnessed today went a ways toward confirming two out of three. I simply don't know enough about Catholicism to follow verbally what was flying around (especially from Jay), much less sedevacantism. So I have no idea if Jay is lying or not about Catholic law. He could simply be accurate or inaccurate.

But Jay's performance was demonstrably gamma sperg. He was clearly triggered. For long stretches it felt like he was channeling Shapiru. I don't watch a lot of debates, so I'm not sure shouting 'You just lost the debate!' is a validated method. Kurgan's demeanor was consummate adult. And by the end seemed like an adult managing a child's temper tantrum.

The chat was funny from a certain standpoint. It was like an audience of homeless people and junior highers having to sit through a theology debate. They just started giving each other wedgies and complaining about boredom. Can't say I'm happy about it. But it probably needed to happen.

If you happened to watch the debate and would like to express your opinion about it, please feel free to do so. But be judicious and specific, as the sort of fanboy posturing one sees on Twitter will not be permitted. And neither of the two participants will be permitted to comment here on their own performances.