Author: VD

Expect more Californication

I have no problem with California and New York City jacking up their tax rates to the Moon… so long as they keep their residents there:

Gerald Prante, an economics professor at Lynchburg College in Virginia, and Austin John, a Lynchburg economics student, calculated marginal tax rates — the highest rates on the highest levels of income — for all 50 states. They combined state, federal and, where applicable, local income taxes, plus payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare and included the deductibility of some taxes.

Proposition 30 added three percentage points to the marginal state income tax rate for California’s highest-income taxpayers, bringing it to 13.3 percent. That action raised California over other high-tax jurisdictions to a marginal rate of 51.9 percent, slightly higher than New York City’s level. Hawaii was the only other place with a calculated rate above 50 percent.

The problem, of course, is that higher taxes cause left-leaning voters who support them to flee those high-tax jurisdictions, who then Californicate their new places of residence.  And so the disease spreads.  Given that border walls present their own evils and are not presently possible without secession, I think the problem is best resolved by not permitting anyone with less than 18 years residence to vote on state and local affairs.  The mechanism is already there in the age-related voting laws, just make them dependent upon 18 years of residence rather than age.

One would hope that after 18 years, either some sense would have been inculcated into them, or more likely, they would have moved on again.

We’re number 19!

John Hawkins has Vox Popoli at #19 on his list of top 60 conservative blogs.  I think that’s pretty good for a libertarian who is only slightly more conservative than Vladimir Lenin crossed with Alaric the Visigoth.

In potentially related news, I’m going to be appearing on The Thom Hartmann Program at 4 PM Eastern to discuss the secession movement inside and outside the USA.  This has the potential to be a bit more interesting than usual because apparently it is a left-leaning program.  You can listen live via stream at www.thomhartmann.com.

Obamateach and the post-college tax

After all, you didn’t build that university degree:

Student Loan debt in the U.S. recently crossed the $1 trillion mark,
with a good chunk of that owed to the U.S. government. In an attempt to
streamline the whole process, a soon-to-be-introduced bill would replace
the current system of debt collection with automatic payroll deductions
tied to the borrower’s income.

I wonder how long it will be before it will become illegal to pay for your own college, thus allowing Washington to tap directly into your paycheck perpetuity as compensation for the government investment in your K-16+ education.  We already have a working model for free education with the Obamacare model.  Obamateach is the obvious next step educational for a society moving rapidly Forward! into the 21st century.

A THRONE OF BONES is out

In Selenoth, the race of Man is on the ascendant. The ancient
dragons sleep. The ghastly Witchkings are no more; their evil
power destroyed by the courage of Men and the fearsome magic of
the Elves. The Dwarves have retreated to the kingdoms of the
Underdeep, the trolls hide in their mountains, and even the savage
orc tribes have learned to dread the iron discipline of Amorr’s
mighty legions. But after four hundred years of mutual suspicion,
the rivalry between two of the Houses Martial that rule the
Amorran Senate threatens to turn violent, and unrest sparks
rebellion throughout the imperial provinces. In the north, the
barbarian reavers who have long plagued the coasts of the White
Sea beg for the royal protection of the King of Savondir, as they
flee a vicious race of wolf-demons. In the east, the war drums
echo throughout the mountains as orcs and goblins gather in great
numbers, summoned by their bestial gods.
And when the Most Holy and
Sanctified Father is found dead in his bed, leaving the Ivory
Throne of the Apostles unclaimed, the temptation to seize the
Sacred College and wield Holy Mother Church as a weapon is more
than some fallen souls can resist.

I am very pleased to be able to say that A Throne of Bones is now available for $4.99 for Amazon Kindle and $4.99 for Barnes and Noble Nook, as well as $34.99 in hardcover from Marcher Lord Hinterlands.  It is 852 pages in hardcover and it is not at all necessary to have read either Summa Elvetica or A Magic Broken first.  Both SE and AMB are little more than an extended chapter in the story of a perspective character from A Throne of Bones.

The Responsible Puppet was the first individual other than the editor to read it, and he kindly took the time to review it on his blog in time for this announcement.

When I reviewed `Summa Elvetica’, Vox Day’s last fiction book, I wrote,
`My feeling here is that this book could be a “The Hobbit”-like prelude
to a much more significant fictional writing.’ This, I’m pleased to say,
is what the author has done. `Throne’ is placed in the same universe as
that book and only a few years (months?) later.  And what is this
universe? Just like with Summa, imagine Rome in the fifth century,
complete with a Christian heritage. Now add in magic. And elves. And
dwarves and goblins and some kind of new immortal creature.

But the geography is completely different. The Empire is Amorr. In it,
there are two very strong family houses that are growing more and more
at odds with each other. In one of these houses, two brothers are in
conflict – for good reason…

It
is, in turn, humorous, shocking and exciting. There are beautiful
moments, there is clever dialogue, there is deep mystery. It took some
level of genius to write it. 

And because every epic fantasy needs a map, this one arguably more than most, I was fortunate to be able to once again call upon the artistic talents of JartStar.  This is the map of Selenoth and Imperial Amorr that appears in the book.

For those who have followed this process from the start and are interested in the minutiae, today marks
499 days since the two conversations with Spacebunny’s cousin and the
Original Cyberpunk about A Dance With Dragons that inspired the writing of the book.  A Throne of Bones contains
297,862 words, 15,875 of them unique.  This compares favorably with
George Martin (295,929 and 13,717, respectively), Joe Abercrombie
(191,393 and 11,260), and Louis L’Amour (94,297 and 7,598), but pales before
the greatest author of my generation, Neal Stephenson (409,365 and
29,239).  And thanks again to those who preordered, as we exceeded our goals by nearly forty percent.  The hardcovers go to press tomorrow and should arrive well in time for Christmas.

UPDATE:  It is nice to see some appreciation for Kirk’s superlative work from Instapundit: “VOX DAY’S NEW NOVEL, A Throne of Bones, is now out at Amazon. Very nice cover.” By all means, judge the book by it….

UPDATE 2: Dr. Helen mentions the release on her site too.

UPDATE 3: I’ve posted an announcement at Black Gate too, with a brief summary of the connection between the book and some of my past posts there.

Another conservative purge

How many times can Republicans purge those to their right from their ranks and still be meaningfully considered to represent the American political right?

Boehner, Majority
Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)
have worked assiduously to keep conservative groups on the outside in
line as they try to strike a massive deal to keep taxes low on all
Americans and avoid spending cuts to the Pentagon and other domestic
programs. The traditional right — The Wall Street Journal editorial page,
National Review, Fox News and business-friendly analysts on CNBC — have
been lockstep in line with Boehner, the result of careful outreach by
leadership staff. But now, top House leaders suddenly find themselves under fire from entities with enormous sway in GOP politics.

The fact that the WSJ, NR, and Fox are pro-business doesn’t mean they are traditional right.  Not anymore.  Mussolini and Hitler were pro-business too.  The irony is that the right was told that they had to dutifully line up behind Mitt Romney because he was, as a moderate, more electable than the anti-bank, anti-war, Ron Paul.  Then, when Romney went down in flames just like McCain, Bush, Dole, Ford and every other elite-selected moderate before, what passes for Republican “leadership” in the House is trying to keep moving left.

If you are a conservative who is still a Republican, I have a very simple question to ask you: why?  It is becoming increasingly obvious that both conservatives and America would have been better off if the John Birch Society purged William F. Buckley rather than the other way around.

And the Scouts of Britain fall

I have little doubt this decision will mark the beginning of British scouting’s long decline into irrelevance:

The Scouts are to drop their historic rule that teenage recruits must declare religious belief, the movement’s leaders said yesterday. In future boys and girls who join the organisation will be allowed to declare themselves as atheists and make a pledge of honourable behaviour that makes no mention of God. The retreat from religion marks a break with a tradition begun in 1908 when the movement’s founder Robert Baden-Powell wrote a Scout Promise which required a vow to ‘do my duty to God’.

It’s really rather remarkable how many organizations are so willing to commit suicide in the name of inclusion and accommodation with the secular world.  Especially when it is so obviously unnecessary; membership in the Scouts had grown by nearly 17 percent in the last 12 years.

Perhaps the Scouts will prove different than all of the various mainstream churches that have declined into irrelevance by moving into the world and away from God.  But I doubt it.  Atheists will doubtless opine that they can’t see any possible reason why scouting should decline just because they are permitted entry, and yet, we see the same pattern play out again, and again, and again.

I’m certainly not sold

But perhaps we can hope this is the dreaded “vote of confidence” in Christian Ponder:

“Christian is our quarterback,” Frazier said, via Tom Powers of the Pioneer Press. “We are going to do all we can to help him have a good game against Chicago and to help our team go out and get a win.”

Frazier said that the game needs to be a learning experience for the young quarterback, something that makes sense given the team’s commitment to Ponder if not the idea that Joe Webb might have been able to help them win on this Sunday. Powers wondered if the rest of the Vikings would be thrilled to hear the team was sticking with the long-term goal of developing Ponder even if it comes at the expense of winning games now.

Considering that Andrew Luck and RG3 are much better than Ponder without the extra season of development, I am dubious that Mr. Play-Action Roll-Out and his five-yard completions are going to significantly improve.  Let him play out the rest of the season, fine.  But then get a real quarterback.  Wasting AD’s prime and his 200-yard games is borderline criminal.

To be honest, I’m increasingly of the opinion that both Ponder and Frazier are mediocre.  Neither is actually terrible, which occasionally leads to false hope.  But neither strike me as ever posing much of a threat to win a Super Bowl even if they weren’t Vikings.

WND column

An American Independence Party

In Spain, the two pro-Catalan independence parties now control a
majority of the regional parliament. While the Esquerra Republicana de
Catalunya is on the political left and the Convergència i Unió is on the
center-right, the one thing they can agree on is that Catalonia should
be independent.

In Great Britain, the Scottish National Party has all but eliminated
the Conservative Party north of the border and seats nearly twice as
many members as the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament. As for the
United Kingdom herself, the United Kingdom Independence Party, derided
by British Prime Minister David Cameron as a collection of “loonies,
fruitcakes and closet racists,” just handed the Tories their
Eton-educated heads in three by-elections that serve as a likely
harbinger of political upheaval to come; UKIP has already effectively
replaced the Liberal Democrats as the United Kingdom’s fourth most
influential political party after the Conservatives, Labour, and the
Scottish National Party.

Palestine is a recognized state

I’m sure the David Frum, Jon Podhoretz, and other advocates of open immigration will be eager to defend the right of the world’s newest nationals to freely immigrate to Jerusalem now:

PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas Sunday promised someday the PA flag would
fly over “Jerusalem, eternal capital of the state of Palestine.” Thousands of people greeted Abbas rapturously upon his return from
the United Nations, where the General Assembly granted the PLO,
representing the PA, upgraded status as a nonmember observer state.

It seems strange that so many people are obtaining the right to self-determination around the world, with US support, with the noticeable exception of Americans.

VPFL 2012 week 12

81 Moundsview Meerkats (9-3-0)
73 RR Redbeards (5-7-0)

52 Greenfield Grizzlies (5-7-0)
36 Bailout Banksters (6-6-0)

81 D.C. Hangmen (4-8-0)
69 Fromundah Cheezheads (8-4-0)

64 ’63Mercury Marauders (8-4-0)
59 Suburban Churchians (2-10-0)

63 Bane Sidhe (7-4-1)
63 Luna City Gamma Rays (5-6-1)

The Piranha of the Serengeti took sweet revenge over their bete noire as Fromundah finally slumped its way out of first place for the first time all season.  Meanwhile, the Banksters and the Bane Sidhe look to be battling it out for the fourth and final playoff position.