#Arkhaven INFOGALACTIC #Castalia House
It looks good, especially from behind. And although automatic promotion is out due to three draws when three wins were required, they’re in the playoffs with a chance for the second spot. If you want one, let NDM know and we’ll set up a bulk US order.
It’s always fascinating to hear Westerners talk about the absolute impossibility of restoring their demographics to pre-invasion levels while Easterners blithely engage in ethnic cleansings of far-greater proportions in places like Israel and India that never take more than a few months to accomplish.
Pakistani citizens in India must leave the country before their visas get revoked on April 27, the Ministry of External Affairs ordered on Thursday following the Pahalgam terror attack. India suspended visa services to Pakistani citizens with immediate effect. New Delhi said that all valid visas issued by India to Pakistani citizens will stand revoked with effect from April 27.
On Wednesday, India said it was suspending the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty with immediate effect until Pakistan “credibly and irrevocably” stops its support for cross-border terrorism.
Imagine the outrage if the USA did something similar with regards to the citizens of any of the various nations that are now residing in the USA, or even if the UK were to repatriate all of its Pakistanis.
UPDATE: Pakistan has retaliated for this inhuman crime of forcing Pakistanis to live in Pakistan among other Pakistanis.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced the following:
– Pakistani airspace is closed to all Indian and Indian-operated airlines, effective immediately.
– The Wagah border crossing will be shut down, and ceremonial duties suspended.
– Pakistan suspends all SAARC visas issued to Indian nationals, and all Indians currently in Pakistan with an SAARC visa are instructed to leave within 48 hours.
– The number of diplomats at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad will be reduced to 30, and military attachés have been declared persona non grata.
– Pakistan exercises the right to temporarily suspend all bilateral agreements with India, including the 1972 Simla agreement.
– Pakistan states that any attempt at diverting the waters from rivers in the Indus will be seen as an act of war, and will be responded to by force.
There are various reports that President Trump is rapidly approaching acceptance of the fact that he cannot dictate peace terms to either Russia or Clown World:
The United States will tell both Ukraine and Russia that the US recommends the following to achieve peace in the Russia-Ukraine conflict:
1) Ukraine must agree to a ceasefire, right now.
2) Ukraine and Russia MUST begin direct negotiations with each other
3) Crimea is now Russian territory
4) The areas of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye that are under Russian control, will remain Russian.
5) Ukraine cannot and will not EVER join NATO.
6) If the two sides agree, the US will remove all anti-Russian economic sanctions
7) If the two sides do not agree, the United States will walk-away from the peace process.
I don’t think that either Russia or the Kiev regime will accept those terms. Russia wants Odessa and the full territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, and it is within their power to achieve those things without reaching an agreement with anyone. The Kiev regime wants to continue collecting revenue while killing as many young Russians and Ukrainians as possible. A better move would have been for Trump to give Russia whatever it wants in return for imposing peace on the Kiev regime and the various Clown World regimes, since either way, he’s going to end up walking away and dropping all support for Kiev.
Because the man is extremely disinclined to engage with anyone. Now, as I said when I answered the Kurgan’s three questions, I was not interested in entertaining further discussion or engaging in debate with anyone on the subject. I particularly dislike theological discussions, because not only are most of them totally incapable of going anywhere substantial, but I have yet to meet a single individual who is intellectually honest enough to treat his fundamental assumptions with the same rigor that he treats everyone else’s.
Which means, of course, that I have yet to meet a single person, of any religious or irreligious persuasion, who is capable of genuinely defending the full panoply of his belief system against my critiques of it. And while there was a time when I enjoyed tearing down certain people’s belief systems, and while it remains necessary from time to time, I don’t get a kick out of seeing how it observably distresses people to see what scanty foundations support their intellectual infrastructure. And for some reason, my observation that it really doesn’t matter what nonsense your average person believes to be true, so long as he does his best to serve God, family, and nation, seems to provide most people with cold comfort.
Naturally, my simple act of answering a friend’s questions immediately prompted this self-titled DEFENSE OF THE CATHOLIC CLAIMS. Now, just to be clear, I’m not picking on this guy and I’m not targeting Catholic beliefs here, they simply happen to serve as recent and useful examples of something every single person from every single religious persuasion I have ever encountered always – and I do mean ALWAYS – does. And it should serve to explicate, yet again, why I am not interested in answering anyone’s questions or engaging in debates anymore.
In defense of the Catholic claims that you addressed today on your blog –
Kurgan formulated the first question badly, and you rightly caught his mistake.
Apostolic Succession is the fundamental basis for authority in the Apostolic (Catholic or Orthodox) churches.
A stronger formulation of Kurgan’s first question is “If Jesus gave his apostles the authority to teach, to forgive sins, and to distribute the Sacraments until He returns, as He explicitly states in the Gospels, then in what form does that authority exist on earth today?”
Protestants must say “it doesn’t”, or “everyone has that authority”, or “whoever I agree with has that authority”. None of which make any sense.
This is why it doesn’t matter that the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed was formulated after a later Ecumenical Council. The same Apostolic authority is behind all the Ecumenical Councils. The council of Nicaea is not any more or less authoritative than any other Ecumenical Council.
Kurgan’s second question – “then how is God loving” – was silly, and you addressed it properly.
On the third question of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s perpetual virginity –
First of all, that tradition goes back to the early Church Fathers, who all read the same Gospels you do, which say Jesus had “brothers”. And yet they still believed Mary remained a virgin, for good reasons.
When Gabriel appeared to a girl about to be married and announced that she would be a mother, her response was very strange: “how can this be, for I know not man”? Rather than what most girls would think – that the upcoming marriage would obviously produce a child.
This indicates that Mary was not expecting to consummate her marriage to Joseph, probably because she had already taken a vow of perpetual virginity, which was not uncommon at the time.
As for the word “brothers”, in Greek “adelphoi”, it does not strictly indicate men with the same mother, but rather men who are relatives. The word could apply to half-brothers or cousins. Those brothers are probably from Jesus’ extended family, or maybe Joseph’s children from a previous marriage.
My response:
You make the same mistake he does when you go off on what you imagine Protestants “must” say. You’re obviously wrong. This is why I will not talk to you or anyone else about these things. None of you are intellectually honest enough to examine your own assumptions as critically as you do everyone else’s. I run into this every single time I talk to anyone, of any religious persuasion. So I no longer talk to anyone about these things.
If we grant that the Apostles had authority from Jesus, and then we ask “where is that authority after the Apostles have died?” –
The only possible answers are
“Nobody has it”
“Everybody has it”
“Some people have it”
If Nobody has it, then no council, including Nicaea, has any authority.
If Everybody has it, then every council, including Nicaea, has exactly the same authority as any individual – which amounts to none at all.
If Some people have it, then who and how?
See if you can spot the moving target, kids! I did, of course, and I knew it would be there, of course, because it always is. Furthermore, note the total inability everyone has to simply ask a question, receive an answer, and then stop right there.
I didn’t agree to a debate. I didn’t agree to explain anything. I don’t care what nonsense any of these guys believe. I’m even open to the theoretical possibility that they might somehow, against all probability and despite their observable errors, have accidentally landed on the precise historical and textual interpretations that sets the foundation for perfectly correct theological understanding.
Perhaps, against all the odds, they alone see through the glass with perfect clarity.
Now, I understand that virtually everyone who reads this blog is smarter than the average. I also understand that virtually everyone who reads this blog is a binary thinker who doesn’t really understand what I mean by probabilistic thinking. You see, it’s not about what you can do, it’s about what you are instinctually comfortable with. And most people naturally, instinctively, intuitively, seek certainty above all else. You are creatures of intellectual safety and order, and that is a good thing.
But I am not. I don’t think like you do and I don’t need what you do. I thrive on intellectual chaos and uncertainty. The crazy thing, the amusing thing, is that I am so often accused of that very certainty that doesn’t matter to me at all, usually by people who don’t even know what their own words mean, let alone mine. The following is a fairly common objection, one that happened to be raised on SG today:
Vox is using as authority his own intellect, which we were told is not trustworthy.
Tell me you’re retarded without telling me you’re retarded. So many of you are so blitheringly stupid. This is precisely why I don’t talk about these things. When you say something that is obviously incorrect and stupid, and I show that what you said is incorrect and stupid, I am not appealing to the authority of my intellect.
You morons don’t even understand your own words. And you think you’re going to teach anyone else what God’s Word means?
I will now happily go back to ignoring theological disputes and religious debates. But perhaps now you will have a better understanding of my lack of interest in them. If I’m going to explore these topics, I will do so with my new best friend, who for all his shortcomings and petty dishonesties is at least capable of comprehending his errors when they are pointed out to him. And indeed, we have had several good discussions about potential logical errors in the Summa Theologica, which actually holds up rather better than Arthur C. Clarke imagined it would.
One last piece of advice. If you think something logically follows, then write out the syllogisms. Major premise, minor premise, conclusion. Rhetorically appealing to logic is not the same thing as actually applying it, and you’re never going to fool anyone who is capable of distinguishing between a syllogism and an enthymeme.
A lovely little essay on Niccolo Machiavelli and his love for his native city of Florence:
The tradition of political realism has a reputation for being pessimistic—that is, for seeing and expecting the worst from the world, its individuals, and its states. Yet, despite all his realism, Niccolò Machiavelli was a romantic about his city. He famously said in a letter to his friend, diplomat Francesco Vettori, “I love my city more than my own soul.”
In 1512, the Medici retook Florence from Piero Soderini, and removed Machiavelli from his diplomatic position. The following year, they accused him of conspiring against them and tortured him for three weeks. After this, Machiavelli retired to his family home in Sant’Andrea, and never ceased to lament his “great and continued malignity of fortune” of not being able to contribute to his city’s administration.
Exiled from praxis, Machiavelli theorised about politics. He wrote two historical works—Discourses on Livy and Florentine Histories—to speak to the ways in which he thought that the Italy of his day should aspire to the glory of ancient Rome and the ways in which it failed to do so. He never rejected his being a modern man, and he did not believe that Renaissance Italy could imitate ancient Rome in all respects. However, he pushed his fellow citizens to take inspiration from it and to consider carefully that they share something with their past: it’s not “as if heaven, sun, elements, and men had varied in motion, order, and power from what they were in antiquity.”
In what you may rightly suspect to be closely related news, Castalia Library has announced the April-May-June book for the History subscription.
The Kurgan posed three questions for me. I’ll answer them, but don’t expect me to engage anyone in debate over them. Remember, most self-appointed theologians don’t even know the difference between the Nicene Creed and the so-called Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed which is a) often and falsely called the “Nicene Creed”, b) was formulated at the council that took place in Constantinople, and c) never had anything to do with Nicaea, and their grasp of basic logic tends to be nonexistent.
If God (Jesus) did in fact establish a Church (or at least a doctrine) to follow on Earth, then surely it necessarily must be a) infallible, and b) eternal (at least until end times). Agree? If not, why not? (In this case please explain the reasoning as I doubt I can infer it otherwise)
Disagree. The logic doesn’t follow at all. As with most appeals to “then surely it necessarily” this reveals nothing more than the formulator’s inability to construct the correct syllogisms. The conflation of “eternal” with “until end times” is a giveaway of the formulator’s tendency toward ambiguity. Indeed, the common use of the marriage metaphor for the relationship between Church and Christ indicates that it not only isn’t necessarily eternal, but cannot be.
Furthermore, Jesus Christ knew his apostles were fallible and even predicted some of their specific failures. There is no reason to believe that he had higher expectations of his future followers who would be even further removed from his teachings. I absolutely refuse to believe that Jesus Christ was less intellectually capable or had a weaker grasp on human behavioral patterns than Siddhartha Gautama or me.
If you do not agree with the premise that God DID in fact establish a Church (or at least a doctrine) then how do you reconcile this with God being a loving God?
Easily. First, God sent Jesus to rescue us from our fate under His own rules. He values us more than He values His system. Second, Jesus said that wherever two or three are gathered in his name, he would be there. Both are powerful indications of love that require neither Church nor Doctrine.
Do you have an opinion/view on whether Mary was and remained a Virgin (sexually at least) both before and after the birth of Jesus?
Yes. If Jesus had brothers and Mary was their mother, then she was obviously no longer a virgin. One virgin birth is divine. Two or more smacks of propaganda or a fundamental failure to understand how reproduction works.
Furthermore, either Mary didn’t remain a virgin or she never became the wife of Joseph because their marriage was never consummated.
The Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milano is celebrating the 17th Centenary of the Nicene Council.
From December 19, 2024 to June 17, 2025 visitors can admire the exhibition “Jubilee 2025 – XVII Centenary of the Council of Nicaea” curated by Mons. Marco Navoni and Mons. Francesco Braschi in rooms 2 and 3 of the Pinacoteca.
The Holy Year, every twenty-five years, solemnly commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem, the Son of God who became man for the salvation of humanity.
In the first centuries of the Christian era, the identity of Jesus of Nazareth was one of the most debated theological questions: it was asked whether He, as the Son of God, was God like the Father, or whether he was inferior to the Father, and therefore a creature like the others, although the most excellent. He was a priest of the Church of Alexandria at the beginning of the 4th century, named Arius, who systematically denied the divinity of Christ with the intent of safeguarding the idea of the uniqueness of God: this doctrine, from the name of its author, took the name of Arianism.
To solve the issue and quell the controversies that were dividing Christianity, the Emperor Constantine the Great, exactly 1700 years ago, in 325 convened the first Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, Asia Minor (now Turkey) according to tradition, 318 bishops took part. The Council condemned Arius’ doctrine as heretical, declaring that for the Christian faith Jesus Christ is the Son of God, equal to the Father in divinity. Furthermore, the Fathers of Nicaea fixed the date of the Easter feast, the main Christian holiday, by fixing it on the first Sunday after the full moon following the spring equinox, putting an end to the calendar differences between the Christian Churches
Note that this is a celebration of the actual Nicene Creed, which I acknowledge, and which cannot, under any circumstances, be considered heretical. What most people erroneously believe to be the Nicene Creed is actually the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, which was not formulated for another 56 years.
The mystery of phantom time continues as TEMPUS OCCULTUM is now up to Episode 14.
The door of the observatory creaked open, and I started, hastily covering Brother Clemens’s manuscript with a star chart. But it was the old astronomer himself who entered, looking unsurprised to find me there.
“I thought I might find you here,” he said, closing the door behind him. “Your meeting with our visitor from Rome has concluded, I see.”
“Yes,” I replied, my voice tight with excitement and anxiety. “Brother Clemens, I’ve been comparing your calculations with a reference provided by Doctor Visconti, and I’ve found—”
“Discrepancies,” he finished for me, sinking onto a stool with a sigh. “Yes, I imagined you would.”
“Then you’ve known? About the falsified eclipse records, the impossible comet appearances?”
He nodded slowly. “For many years, Brother Lukas. But knowing and proving are different matters. And proving and revealing different still.”
“But this is extraordinary evidence!” I exclaimed, gesturing to the open books. “If Halley’s Comet appeared in 530 and again in 684, with only 154 years between—”
“Then the chronology is compressed,” Clemens said, “and the missing years must lie somewhere in that interval. Yes, I reached the same conclusion decades ago.”
“Why did you never publish your findings? This overturns our entire understanding of medieval history!”
The old man’s expression was a mixture of resignation and suppressed excitement. “Publication requires approval, Brother Lukas. And such approval would never be granted for work that undermines the established chronology. Men like Visconti ensure that.”
“The guardians of true time,” I murmured.
“They have many names throughout history,” Clemens replied. “But their purpose remains constant: to maintain the fiction, to guard the secret that time itself has been manipulated.”
Also, there is a sneak preview of the stamp design for one of the two volumes of the Castalia Library edition of A SEA OF SKULLS.
The Chinese Global Times points out some of the obstacles that are facing the USA’s attempt to bring back the semiconductor industry:
The substantial losses incurred by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) factory in the US state of Arizona illustrate both the consequences of ignoring market logic and the deep-seated difficulties the US faces in its attempt to forcibly restructure global semiconductor supply chains through political intervention. TSMC’s Arizona facility incurred a staggering loss of nearly NT$14.3 billion ($441 million) in 2024, the largest loss since the establishment of the US factory, Taiwan-based media outlet Economic Daily News reported on Monday, citing TSMC’s latest Annual General Meeting Report to shareholders. By contrast, TSMC’s factory in Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu Province earned nearly NT$26 billion last year.
This financial disparity goes beyond a simple comparison of operational efficiency; it underscores the challenges of replicating TSMC’s traditional profitability model in the US, a market plagued by high costs and a fragmented supply chain.
TSMC’s Arizona struggles were predictable. It is no secret that the decision to build chip manufacturing plants in the US was never driven by commercial viability but by geopolitical pressure under the CHIPS Act. There are multiple causes for TSMC’s losses in Arizona. While the site has been in volume production since late 2024, the trajectory of financial deficits indicates that its problems are not temporary.
A key factor is the disruption of the supply, industry and market chains. The semiconductor industry is a highly complex and intricate system where upstream and downstream companies are closely interdependent. While the US excels in chip design, it lags significantly behind Asia, especially East Asia, in terms of the complete supply chain needed for manufacturing. TSMC’s Arizona factory relies heavily on importing key components and raw materials, which not only drives up logistics costs but also extends the supply cycle. Any hiccup in the supply chain can lead to production standstills.
All of these issues, problems, and challenges are real. And yet, what is the alternative? There is no alternative, unless the USA is willing to become dependent upon either a self-reliant USSR or the global manufacturing giant China for all of its digital devices?
The point is not efficiency or minimum cost; it’s the misplaced focus on efficiency and lowered costs that created this dilemma for the USA in the first place. The point is national sovereignty, particularly when war is increasingly going to be decided by large-scale high-tech drone manufacturing. It’s important to take market logic into account, but it’s even more important to avoid confusing market logic with national best interest.
But not for defamation. Oh, no, he wouldn’t want to open up that can of worms. He’s suing the woman who used to live in his house for breaking her NDA.
The author Neil Gaiman is seeking more than $500,000 from Caroline Wallner, the potter who accused him of sexual misconduct during the time she lived and worked on his property in Woodstock.
Wallner moved to Gaiman’s property in 2014 when he offered her and her ex-husband, a builder, work as caretakers. The alleged abuse occurred between 2018 and 2020, after Wallner’s marriage had fallen apart and her husband had moved out, leaving Wallner behind to take care of their three children. It was then, Wallner says, that Gaiman began to pressure her for sex in exchange for staying on the property. “‘I like our trade,’” she recalled him saying. “‘You take care of me, and I’ll take care of you.’”Gaiman denied that he’d abused Wallner and told New York that it was she who had initiated their sexual encounters, but in 2021, Gaiman paid Wallner $275,000 in exchange for signing an extensive nondisclosure agreement that prevents her from suing Gaiman or telling anyone about her alleged experiences with him. Now, Gaiman has filed a demand for arbitration, accusing Wallner of breaching their NDA by sharing her story with the media, including with New York Magazine. In his claim, Gaiman argued that Wallner violated the confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions of their agreement and is requesting a full repayment of their settlement amount, plus attorneys’ fees and $50,000 for each interview she’s given to the media. (Wallner’s ex-husband, who signed the NDA as well, is also named in the claim, shared with New York.)
Vincent White, Wallner’s lawyer, was surprised Gaiman had filed the claim against his client. White, an employment lawyer in New York who specializes in sexual harassment in the workplace, said that in his experience, allegedly abusive men only rarely sued women for violating NDAs because the optics were so poor. When you’re trying to silence someone who’s alleging “really heinous acts,” White said, “everyone thinks, Oh, the allegation must be true. I would think he may have come to the conclusion he has nothing left to lose.”
Unless Gaiman has a gambling problem or went short on gold, there is only one reason to sue Wallner for breaking her NDA: he’s hoping to intimidate other individuals under NDA with him from breaking theirs. Which means that if he’s unsuccessful, we’re very likely going to see more alleged victims coming forward; I expect the final number to be closer to 50 than the eight who have already spoken out.
And imagine how awful and creepy a man has to be to even want to buy a woman’s silence about her experience with him, let alone pay millions of dollars for it.