Year: 2023

Why I Dislike Quote Posts

I do not quote post. I find quote-posting to be rather narcissistic, mostly unnecessary, and somewhat smacking of the Smart Boy. I don’t think it should be banned or restricted, but I have to admit that I do tend to roll my eyes at a post that quotes a post that already has healthy engagement with dozens of comments.

There is, of course, a place for quote-posting. Ironically, the people who absolutely should be quote-posting don’t, while most of the people who do really shouldn’t. The ideal place for quote-posting is when your comment is excessively tangential to the original post or would otherwise tend to derail the discussion of the topic at hand. For example, if you’re going to take pedantic and detailed exception to some minor aspect of the post in question, or if you’re a Protestant/Catholic who is going to take the opportunity to unnecessarily express your very important opinion of the Roman Catholic Church/Random Protestant Denomination, that would be a good time to quote the post and thereby branch the discussion in an appropriate manner that most of the commenters on the thread will tend to appreciate.

If, however, you’re merely quote-posting to ensure that your Very Important Comment is not lost amidst the general stream of commentary on the topic, well, that’s simply not necessary. I’m not going to say that such a quote-poster is necessarily seeking attention with all the intensity of a girl on a pole chasing dollar bills, but that’s pretty much how it tends to strike me, anyhow.

Here’s how you can tell the difference: how much engagement of your quote post can you reasonably expect in comparison with the original post? If there is a reasonable fraction, then you’ve probably reasonably branched the discussion and provided a useful service to the community. If, however, there is no engagement, then you’re just quoting-posting to no purpose and everyone would be better off if you would simply comment on the original post instead of quoting it. Once you start to recognize the pattern of when others engage and when they don’t, it should be possible for you to improve your decision-making in this regard.

And for the love of all that is good and holy and beautiful and true, please recognize that a quote of this post, or any post on the subject, will neither be clever nor witty nor anything but painfully obvious.

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Tuesday Comics

CHATEAU GRIEF Episode 316: Rehab is for Quitters

THE SIDEWINDERS Episode 46: The Price of Madness

WARDOGS INC. Episode 33: Cemetery Hill

GIVE MY REGARDS TO BLACK JACK Episode 32: Even if You’re Right

GORGO Episode 33: The Return of Gorgo

TREASURY OF TALES Episode 27: The Golden Goose

THE LOST ERA TRANSCRIPTS Episode 24: The Deep Dark Hole

REBEL DEAD REVENGE Episode 89: The End of a Blood-Soaked Day

RIOT TOWN, USA Episode 37: La Haine pour Lahaina

STONETOSS Episode 243: Gay Bashing

COSMIC HORRORS Episode 4: The Temple

Sheepoleth

sheepoleth [ shee-puh-lith, ‐leth ]

noun

  1. a peculiarity of unjustified belief that distinguishes a particular class or set of persons.
  2. a slogan or catchword that regurgitates the mainstream Narrative
  3. a common saying or belief with little current meaning or truth that is accepted by the average individual without skepticism, critical thought, or question.

“Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines.'”

-George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

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Earning His Keep

It’s not hard to figure out why the election of WEF creature Javier Milei was arranged in Argentina:

Argentina is not planning to become a member of BRICS on January 1, Diana Mondino, senior economic adviser to the country’s president-elect, Javier Milei, told Sputnik Brazil on Monday.

The invitation to join BRICS was approved in August and extended to Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The current alliance consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

“I don’t know why there is so much interest around BRICS,” Mondino said, adding that it’s unclear how joining the group would benefit Argentina. The candidate for Argentine foreign minister also said that the country’s government will “analyze” if joining the organization promises advantages.

Milei, who beat Economy Minister Sergio Massa in Sunday’s presidential runoff, had previously voiced opposition to joining BRICS. He has also expressed marked reluctance to support economic ties with China and Brazil while planning to work toward economic rapprochement with the US and Israel.

“I’m not going to push for deals with communists because they don’t respect the basic parameters of free trade, freedom, and democracy; it’s geopolitics,” Milei said in August, adding that “some countries are not along those lines.”

At the same time, the president-to-be pledged not to interfere with the country’s businesses that are dealing with the BRICS countries. He has also vowed to “dollarize” the Argentinian economy.

So, while the rest of the world is successfully struggling to escape the sclerotic chains of Clown World, Argentina is going to enslave itself even more enthusiastically now in the name of free trade, freedom, and democracy. The results of which should further confirm the wisdom in the skepticism of the Christian Nationalists in those clownish shibboleths.

Javier Milei is in company with Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro. He’s an actor. The Right is supposed to believe he is on their side, but he is just another servant of Clown World and the policies he embraces will be virtually identical to theirs.

Libertarian is just another word for “right-wing globalist”. Remember, Satan was the original sovereign individual.

It’s all so tiresome. Quelle surprise. This is my shocked face.

Italy’s Meloni is now pushing for more immigration after running her election campaign on stopping immigration.

I repeat: “the voting electorate has absolutely no voice in a modern democracy.”

UPDATE: Benjamin Netanyahu’s father changed his name from “Mileikowsky” upon immigrating to Israel. Which may, or may not, be relevant here.

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Word Counts

It’s not a competition; some of the best books ever written are not particularly long. The one that surprised me most is WATERSHIP DOWN, as that has always struck me as a massive and epic tale. But it does put things in perspective, sizewise.

The Hobbit – 95,022
The Fellowship of the Ring – 187,790
The Two Towers – 156,198
The Return of the King – 137,115
THE LORD OF THE RINGS – 573,125 total

Summa Elvetica & Other Stories – 173,493
A Throne of Bones – 297,500
A Sea of Skulls – 299,320
ARTS OF DARK AND LIGHT – 717,313 and counting

Philosopher’s Stone – 77,325
Chamber of Secrets – 84,799
Prisoner of Azkaban – 106,821
Goblet of Fire – 190,858
Order of the Phoenix – 257,154
Half Blood Prince – 169,441
Deathly Hallows – 198,227
HARRY POTTER SERIES – 1,084,675 total

A Game of Thrones – 296,901
A Clash of Kings – 321,676
A Storm of Swords – 414,792
A Feast for Crows – 296,989
A Dance with Dragons – 413,202
A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE – 1,746,560 total (assuming the reports that he’s laid down the pen are true)

Gardens of the Moon – 242,265
Deadhouse Gates – 316,975
Memories of Ice – 408,425
House of Chains – 326,275
Midnight Tides – 288,920
The Bonehunters – 390,755
Reaper’s Gale – 382,000
Toll the Hounds – 409,355
Dust of Dreams – 402,070
The Crippled God – 421,755
MALAZAN BOOK OF THE FALLEN – 3,255,546 total

Dune – 187,240
Dune Messiah – 75,127
Children of Dune – 148,381
God Emperor of Dune – 138,167
Heretics of Dune – 165,131
Chapterhouse Dune – 143,435
DUNE SAGA – 857,481 total

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Continue reading “Word Counts”

The Invasion of Britain

The Conservative Party has completely failed to conserve Great Britain.

Net migration could hit 700,000 in new figures this week, the Mail understands, opening a new front for attacks on Rishi Sunak by the Tory Right. Internal Home Office forecasts suggest the official net migration estimate – to be published on Thursday – will rise to a record level. The figure for the year to June is expected to top 700,000, beating the high of 606,000 for 2022, sources said.

To put these numbers into perspective, consider that the successful German invasion of Poland in 1939 was accomplished with 1,250,000 soldiers, five percent less than the number of those who have invaded Great Britain in the last two years alone.

But hey, at least they’re not speaking German, right?

What those with no grasp of history fail to understand is that mass immigration is worse for a nation than a military invasion. Considerably worse. Because, as we have already witnessed from Afghanistan to Iraq, soldiers go home when the military occupation is over.

Immigrants don’t. Just ask the Palestinians how mass immigration has affected them. Or the Native Americans. This is why, as historian Martin van Creveld has concluded, immigration is war.

UPDATE: Further to Peter Turchin’s observations that the voting electorate has absolutely no voice in a modern democracy, an SG reader points out the following:

It must be noted that these record levels of immigration have occurred under a Conservative government elected on a manifesto commitment to massively reduce immigration.

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The Global Economy is Dead

And the Great Bifurcation is now in place. Russia and China are no longer using the US dollar for trade between their countries:

Western currencies have been almost completely phased out in Russia-China trade, as nearly all payments between the countries are now carried out in rubles and yuan, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Belousov announced on Monday.

Since the introduction of Western sanctions on Moscow, Russia and China have accelerated the use of their own currencies in trade. According to Belousov, 95% of all transactions between Russia and China are now carried out in one of the countries’ national currencies, and given the rapid expansion of mutual trade and cooperation, this percentage is likely to grow.

Speaking at a meeting of the Russia-China intergovernmental commission in Beijing, the deputy prime minister said bilateral trade between the two countries will exceed the target of $200 billion this year, and may reach $300 billion by 2030.

World War III largely remains unfought, and yet its economic victors are already apparent. For decades, the USA has bombed, staged coups, invaded, and occupied in order to defend the primacy of the US dollar. In less than two years, inspired by what has to be the dumbest, least well-considered economic siege in recorded history, the USA has lost its ability to exert currency influence over the biggest economy on the planet and the foremost military power on Earth.

It’s only a matter of time now before all the BRICS countries stop using the dollar for trade outside the Western bloc. The ramifications of this are massive, and may well serve to mark the precise moment that the USA ceased to be a global power and became a regional one again.

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Ideology is Rhetoric

I wouldn’t get too excited about the election of Javier Milei in Argentina. If there is one thing that we have learned from more than 100 years of democracy in America and elsewhere, it is that ideology is usually an irrelevant mask for the true objectives of those the elected politician serves.

In END TIMES, Peter Turchin cites compelling and reasonably comprehensive data analysis that proves the democratic will of the people in the United States has absolutely no influence on the policies put into place by their elected leaders, by means of a large-scale comparison of their policy preferences with the resulting policies put into place by their government.

The political scientist Martin Gilens, aided by a small army of research assistants, gathered a large data set—nearly two thousand policy issues between 1981 and 2002. Each case matched a proposed policy change to a national opinion survey asking a favor/oppose question about the initiative. The raw survey data provided information that enabled Gilens to separate the preferences of the poor (in the lowest decile of the income distribution) and the typical (the median of the distribution) from the affluent (the top 10 percent).

Statistical analysis of this remarkable data set showed that the preferences of the poor had no effect on policy changes. This is not entirely unexpected. What is surprising is that there was no—zilch, nada—effect of the average voter. The main effect on the direction of change was due to the policy preferences of the affluent. There was also an additional effect of interest groups, the most influential ones being business-oriented lobbies. Once you include in the statistical model the preferences of the top 10 percent and the interest groups, the effect of the commoners is statistically indistinguishable from zero.

Peter Turchin, END TIMES: Elites, Counterelites, and the Path of Political Disintegration, 2023

In a highly relevant essay, the Bronze Age Pervert explains why “economic populists” always end up betraying the nation they are nominally supposed to represent, regardless of whether they are considered “right-wing” or “left-wing”. This is why ideology is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter very much if you elect Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Boris Johnson, or the Irish Republican Army, as their collective answer to everything is always: open the doors wider, bring in more immigrants, flood the nation!

It is also why China, and to a lesser extent, Russia, are very good bets to defeat the denationalized remnants of the adulterated nations of the West. In both great powers, the nation always comes before ideology. Stalin transmuted the international socialist revolution into national communism, while in China nationalism is built right into the ideology, as even socialism is required to have “Chinese characteristics”.

Consider for example that the doors of Argentina have been busted wide open to mass migration. This has been done despite the economic populist and nationalist language that Bannonites invoke in America and that Peronists have used even more aggressively in Argentina. I find it fascinating that all left-populist and economic populist platform nations or regions have this same result by the way. Ireland did, so does Basque Country in Spain — ETA being the spirit of that region and along with the Kurdish PKK one of the old and dependable factions of the international “nationalist left.” But all are flooded with migrants. To look into the reasons why I will again leave for another time but I suspect that, although when out of power such parties insinuate that migrants are being let in for “cheap labor” as a conspiracy by Capital or devious capitalists who plan to build an orbital station like in Elysium movie; and so they promise — maybe genuinely — the lower middle and middle classes that they will stop this migration and improve the labor market, wages, and their economic condition. But then once in power, left-populist parties discover that the migrants were never being brought in by capitalists for Machiavellian reasons; that at most, the capitalists were being bought off, and not all the capitalists but only some industries, who were allowed to profit and who therefore complied… although it’s unclear their willingness to comply or not would have been at all relevant. That the migrants were in fact being brought in primarily as political clients and political tools for the left and by those who opposed “the rich” — a shifting definition that often comes to include much of the middle class as well. And so the logic of this is irresistible to “economic populist” parties once in power for some time, regardless of their initial rhetoric about the “pauperization of the proletariat finally coming true through the vehicle of mass migration.” If your position is “the poor and conservative many against the decadent and predatory Elite and rich,” why wouldn’t you come to see millions of foreign poor “decent family people” as your allies? Economic populists, even when they have open nationalist and ethnic rhetoric in their beginnings, will always abandon this in favor of importing new clients, and it is rational for them to do so. In many cases they don’t in fact have specifically racial, or national or ethnic-cultural language even by the way: many rightists are dumbly misled when a leftist starts to inveigh against “globalism,” the “IMF,” “international Anglo-Liberalism,” “the transnational elites,” and many such things, into thinking that such a person must surely want to preserve the demographic and cultural characteristics of a particular country or region. But that’s almost never the case: importing millions of Paraguayans, Peruvians, Bolivians in Argentina, or migrants in Basque Country or Ireland may actually come to be seen as “yes we are importing good family people who will stand with us in native solidarity against globalism, Capital, and Neoliberal atomization.” And that is in fact what happened.

The Populist Moment Never Happened

The point is that if Ben Shapiro is publicly celebrating the election of a political leader who is an immigrant Catholic apostate, the chances that the new president-elect has any intention of governing the Argentine nation to its actual benefit are not very favorable, no matter what ideology he purports to espouse.

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She’s Far from the Only One

Peter King is an excellent football reporter. While I could do without his occasional editorial sallies into politics, which reliably offer typically retarded left-wing takes, he follows in the well-respected tradition of Paul Zimmerman. If he reports on something football-related, you can guarantee that it is honest, legitimate, and well-sourced, and it is probably true.

But he clearly has no idea how flagrantly dishonest most of the mainstream media is on a regular basis, or he wouldn’t be calling for sideline fabulist Charissa Thompson’s pretty little head:

We live in a time when the media is more distrusted than I ever remember. Thompson is a high-profile person who hosts the Thursday night pregame show on Amazon Prime, who hosts a Sunday pre-game on Fox, who co-hosts a podcast with Erin Andrews. She says on the Pardon My Take podcast that in her former role as a sideline reporter at Fox she would “make up the report sometimes.” It’s outrageous. It’s fireable. Thompson’s not covering the White House, but I don’t care if she’s covering the Chula Vista Little League. Her job is to report the truth, and she admitted she made up things. When Thompson says that, it’s fodder for media-haters to say, “See? They all lie.” Now, in these high-profile roles at Amazon and Fox, how do you trust she’s not inventing some of the things she’s saying? And where are the programming people, the bosses, particularly at Fox, where Thompson said these sideline reports occurred? The silence says one of two things: Sideline reports don’t really matter. Or the truth doesn’t really matter. Or both.

Thompson’s statement after the firestorm didn’t solve anything. Thompson didn’t say on Pardon My Take that she’d almost make it up, or use some qualifying words. She said she “would make it up.” And she repeated it: “No coach is gonna get mad if I say, ‘Hey, we need to stop hurting ourselves, we need to be better on third down, we need to stop turning the ball over and do a better job of getting off the field.’ They’re not gonna correct me on that. So I’m like, it’s fine, I’ll just make up the report.” In her Instagram statement the next day, Thompson said: “I understand how important words are and I chose the wrong words to describe the situation. I’m sorry. I have never lied about anything or been unethical during my time as a sports broadcaster.” Twice Thompson said she’d made up reporting. A day later she said she never lied or was unethical. So, what’s true? What she said on the podcast? What she said in a clear CYA statement that made things worse?

So she lied a few times. And then she lied about having lied. So what? The vast majority of reporters lie, or at the very least report things they don’t actually know to be true, on a daily basis. It’s not as if Congress is sending tens of billions of dollars to the Carolina Panthers because she gave them cause to believe they might possibly be able to win a few games.

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