Author: VD

RIP Hulk Hogan

Wrestling superstar Hulk Hogan has died, his manager confirmed. He was 71.

Hogan, whose given name is Terry Bollea, attained pro wrestling stardom in the 1980s and 1990s and was perhaps the biggest star in WWE’s five-decade history. He was the main draw for the first-ever WrestleMania in 1985 and was a fixture for years in its signature event, facing everyone from Andre The Giant and Randy Savage to The Rock and even company chairman Vince McMahon.

He won six WWE championships and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005 by Sylvester Stallone.

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RIP Julian LeFay

Legendary Elder Scrolls creator Julian LeFay passes away at 59. Julian LeFay, the designer largely credited with helping shape the vision of fan favorite Elder Scrolls franchise, has passed away at the age of 59.

This is a hard one to hear. I was friends with Bennie for years, and it will probably surprise a lot of people to learn that we even worked together for 18 months on what was supposed to be a launch title for the Sega Dreamcast.

He left Bethesda to come work for Fenris Wolf after we signed a $1.5 million deal with Sega to provide its first RPG for its new Katana system after our original producer at GT moved to Sega of America and made signing us one of his first orders of business. I’d licensed the rights to Traveller from Marc Miller, and Julian was not only tired of working at Bethesda after his friend Vijay had left for Microsoft, but was very excited to take his innovative design concepts into a science fiction space for the first time.

And, of course, he liked the idea of working with me and my partner, as we’d hung out together at various CGDCs and E3s for four or five years by that point. He, Vijay, Bobby Prince from id, and Carter from Spectrum Holobyte were the people I spent the most time with at the Westin and the various other locations outside of the CGW crew.

Unfortunately, Sega of Japan eliminated Sega of America and cancelled all ten launch titles that SOA had in development, including ours, about one year prior to the launch of the Dreamcast, in favor of spending the $100 million that had been budgeted for those games on putting the Dreamcast logo on the front of the Arsenal FC jerseys. This was, of course, a terrible decision that was much-mocked in the industry, and helped contribute to the failure of the Dreamcast to compete with the original Sony PlayStation despite its technical superiorities.

I still remember Julian, Kurt (from SOA) and I laughing about the fake headline in a parody newsletter given out at CGDC that read: “SEGA REFUSES TO REVEAL PLANS FOR SELF-IMMOLATION” or something to that effect. It wasn’t quite so funny when I got the phone call from Kurt telling me that a) he had been let go, b) SOA was being shut down by SOJ, and c) Traveller was canceled. In retrospect, that was the beginning of the end for my time in the game industry, as GT’s collapse followed Sega of America’s by about 18 months.

So Julian and I never finished our game. We talked once or twice about possibly working together, and I think he ended up getting back together with Vijay toward the end, but things never managed to quite work out. It’s truly a pity, because I think that what we could have – what we WOULD have – achieved would have been truly epic, in fact, more epic than Epic.

It is truly the end of an era. Julian LeFay is gone, but he should never be forgotten by the gaming community. He never received the plaudits of Richard Garriott, John Romero, or Sid Meier, but he was genuinely one of the great designers of the era. He always imagined things on a larger scope than most of us were able to conceptualize. He set the standard for complex randomized environments and laid some of the conceptual foundations for both the MMO and all modern games that incorporate random elements as part of their design.

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Release ALL the Epstein Files NOW

The Trump administration doesn’t seem to grasp that no matter how it shakes and dances and rationalizes, absolutely no one is going to accept their excuses for not doing what was promised.

Indeed, the MAGA world fury is not dying down after Bondi’s Justice Department released a July 7 memo on their investigation.

The document stated that the DOJ was not a possession of an ‘incriminating’ Epstein ‘client list,’ had no credible evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals and concluded that the convicted pedophile was not murdered in prison.

‘No further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted,’ the DOJ flatly declared.

Suffice to say, it didn’t go over well.

Tim Dillon, a popular podcaster who interviewed Vice President Vance on October 26 in the run-up to the 2024 election, said he was invited to a dinner last week with Vance, who told him that the 10,000 hours of video files in connection to the Epstein case were ‘commercial pornography’ and cannot be released.

Dillion claims Vance told him ‘they do not have videos of any powerful person in a compromising position,’ before remarking with skepticism, ‘That’s the party line that they’re going with?’

‘What I told Vance, I said, “If you don’t disclose everything, you’re done. Nobody will support you guys. You are fully and completely part of this coverup if everything doesn’t come out.” I think it paralyzes their presidency,’ said Dillon, adding, ‘[Vance] agrees with me.’

Conspiracy theorist and InfoWars host Alex Jones appeared on Dillion’s podcast on Monday to say that he, too, has been contacted by the White House.

‘I’ve had the White House call up and be like in the last week, “What do you want?”,’ Jones said.

Jones said he told a White House staffer, ‘I want you to do what you were elected to do,’ a reference to Trump’s campaign trail pledges for complete transparency in the Epstein investigation.

Dillon then replied: ‘They want this to go away… [But] it’s not going to go away until [they] disclose the information [they] have.’

The Daily Mail can also report that the White House reached out to Charlie Kirk, the highly influential leader of youth movement, organized under his non-profit organization Turning Point USA.

‘I am not minimizing this,’ Kirk said on his podcast on July 15. ‘I am just the messenger here. I am simply the interlocutor. The young men, and the Gen-Z audience that I represent, they are flaming mad about this stuff.’

Kirk explained the conservative people he speaks to refuse to drop the issue because ‘they want to go after the deep state of government.’

The Daily Mail can also report that the White House reached out to Charlie Kirk, the highly influential leader of youth movement, organized under his non-profit organization Turning Point USA.

The Daily Mail can also report that the White House reached out to Charlie Kirk, the highly influential leader of youth movement, organized under his non-profit organization Turning Point USA.

A day later, Kirk appeared to backpedal: ‘Honestly, I’m done talking about Epstein for the time being. I’m going to trust my friends in the administration, I’m going to trust my friends in the government to do what needs to be done, solve it, ball’s in their hands.’

However, this episode demonstrates the importance of cuckservative gatekeepers to the administration, and why they embrace certain people while keep others – like yours truly – at arms length. Because they know that the likes of Charlie Kirk are eventually, despite their better instincts, always going to knuckle under and defend the party line in order to preserve their access to fame and power.

They don’t want those of us who couldn’t care less about that sort of access because we’re never going to trust anyone or fall in line. There are only three ways out of this: release all of the information, lose all credibility, or resign.

Americans have been listening to their government declare it can’t do the things it should do and has to do the things it shouldn’t do for at least 40 years. That’s not a credible excuse anymore. The truth will set you free, so release all of it to the public, put all the videos online, and let the chips fall where they may. Everyone knows that world leaders weren’t visiting Epstein just because he had a copious porn collection that didn’t feature anyone of any import.

And if the system is so weak that it will collapse if people know the truth about it, then it’s going to collapse anyway. If President Trump is going to be destroyed if people know the truth about him, then let him be destroyed. The will of the American people is perfectly clear in all of this.

UPDATE: It’s never hard for the satanists to find those who are not only willing, but eager to sell their souls.

The Israel foreign ministry will spend $86,000 to finance a tour of Israel for 16 Americans to get them to use their vast online influence to craft more positive images of a nation openly engaged in genocide. The effort is being made as Israel reacts to a significant turn in public opinion against it, especially by Western youth. Tel Aviv realizes its usual methods of propaganda — and apparently its own inhouse troll army — are no longer working as they once did.

The daily Haaretz reported: “Foreign Ministry officials say the tour delivers significant media, advocacy, and diplomatic benefits – and represents a strategic shift, as traditional outreach is no longer sufficient to shape public opinion. They aim to leverage the massive followings of young social media influencers to bolster Israel’s standing in the U.S.”

The Americans, whose names have not been divulged, belong to the MAGA and America First movements, the newspaper said. They are all younger than 30 and each have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers, a vast, target-rich environment for propaganda. Israel intends to bring more than 500 “influencer delegations” to Israel this year, the ministry said.

I don’t think it’s going to be hard to figure out who they are…

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Clown World Turns on Zelensky

It’s time for another so-called leader to be thrown from the high horse, if Simplicius has read the situation correctly:

Tonight the knives have come out for Zelensky and his gang. What started as gripes against push back on some irrelevant NGO-run organs has turned into a fledgling ‘Maidan’ against the now unfavored Ukrainian leader.

As always, establishment rags were swift with their coordinated messaging to energize the push:

Most eye-opening about the fall from grace is how boldly the chosen actors are playing their lines, pearl-clutching about some imagined ‘repressions’ of a pair of organizations virtually no one has heard of or cared about until a few days ago, in this case NABU (National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine) and SAPO (Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office).

There are myriad other far more pressing concerns for Ukraine, not even counting the war itself, and yet the pitched fight around some Biden-era “anti-corruption” watchdogs is what has animated the intelligentsia and paid-off ‘influencer’ sphere to take to the streets with pre-branded slogans and obligatory ‘English’-scripted signs?

There’s no real point rehashing the whole backstory because it’s just a convoluted cover for the latest psyop-turned-color revolution…

“The US Embassy in Ukraine directly controls NABU and SAPO.” — Vladimir Putin, Feb 22, 2022

When you dig into how these organizations are run, and how their key players are appointed, you find that the process is controlled by a commission of European “specialists”. Ukrainians are also on the board, but the Europeans have the overriding vote.

So, just as in the “democracy” of the EU system itself, an unelected commission of outsiders has all the say in positioning their favored directors of these Ukrainian organizations. These directors then take all their marching orders from the US embassy, as per Putin.

Translation: both the 2014 coup that brought the Zelensky regime to power and the coming 2025 coup that will remove Zelensky from his unelected office were manufactured by the US State Department.

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Last Call for Coffee

One of the elite rewards of the Hypergamouse campaign was the Coffee Table Book, which is a large horizontal edition with only two panels per page, thereby spreading out each episode to two pages and permitting larger panels and higher resolution art. This backer’s edition is now available at NDM Express as well as at the Arkhaven store and features the first 100 episodes of the popular comic as well as the nine episodes of the original black-and-white comic drawn by the original illustrator. NDM Express is recommended if you have credit card issues at Arkhaven.

There are more details at Sigma Game if you’re interested, including a picture of a test binding of the Hypergamouse leather edition in the new burgundy pigskin. But today is the last day to obtain a copy of this special edition with a very limited print run of less than 150.

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That Was Fast

The new Japanese Prime Minister is already resigning:

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba plans to step down following a bruising upper house election defeat, a source told Reuters, as the embattled premier announced a long-sought trade deal with U.S. President Donald Trump. The 68-year old leader said media reports that he had already decided to resign were “completely unfounded.”

Ishiba chose not to quit straight after the election to prevent political instability as an August 1 deadline for clinching the trade deal approached, the source close to the prime minister said, asking not to be identified because they are not authorised to talk to the media.

Ishiba will announce his resignation next month, Japanese media reported earlier.

Ishiba and Trump on Tuesday unveiled a trade deal that lowers tariffs on imports of Japanese autos and spares Tokyo punishing new levies on other goods.

His departure less than a year after taking office will trigger a succession battle within the ruling Liberal Democratic party as it contends with challenges from new political parties, particularly on the right, that are stealing its support.

Among them is the “Japanese First” Sanseito far-right group which surged in Sunday’s vote, growing its representation in the 248-seat upper house to 14 from one. The party has attracted voters with pledges to curb immigration, slash taxes, and provide financial relief to households squeezed by rising prices.

Ishiba defeated hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi in a party leadership runoff last year.

The Black Rider doesn’t hesitate to throw his servants from his horse when they prove useless. And Ishiba, rather like Trump, would probably have been a perfectly good leader in more normal times, but was completely unequipped to begin dealing with the challenges facing the Japanese people today.

Politicians would do well to understand that there is no fixing Clown World and no amount of high-minded rhetorical posturing is going to accomplish anything. It is a time for deeds, not words, as both Xi and Putin have demonstrated. And, one should not fail to note, Netanyahu.

Japan needs a Prime Minister who is not afraid to break with the USA and the G7 in favor of BRICS.

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Correction

Karl Denninger sets the record straight:

Karl Denninger:

Date: June 25, 2020

Source: Denninger’s blog, Market-Ticker.

Content: In a post titled “Spike Proteins, COVID and Vaccines”, Denninger raised specific concerns about the safety profile of spike-protein-based vaccines (like mRNA vaccines) under development. He argued the spike protein itself was pathogenic (“toxic”) and that using it as the antigen could trigger dangerous immune responses or other health issues, explicitly warning against taking such a vaccine. This is one of the earliest and most specific technical critiques of the emerging vaccine technology by a public figure.

Key Quote: ”If you are offered a vaccine against COVID-19 that is based on a spike protein, either as the antigen or the mechanism of generating the antigen (e.g. mRNA that causes your body to manufacture the spike protein) DO NOT TAKE IT.”

This is allegedly from “Deepseek.”

There’s a problem: I can find no such article from June 25th, 2020 — or on any other date. That is, the specific cited title of an article on my blog does not exist and neither does the alleged “Key Quote.”

Articles here are never actually deleted. They expire from public view (unless exempted) but they’re still here along with every one of the comments. My software allows me to trivially search the entire system as well. That specific citation is fiction.

Further, the first actual scientific evidence that the spike itself was toxic, while I suspected it very early on, was the Salk Study on the spike protein alone that established it was pathogenic — and that was first released as a pre-print just before the shots rolled out in December of 2020 and was peer-reviewed a few months later. I wrote on that at the time and while I said many times in the months prior that I was suspicious and would not take the shots primarily because they were not mimics and thus had an unknown set of risks (e.g. “How Many Lies Do You Give Them?”, published 2021-02-02) the specific citation claimed, on the date it was claimed, is nowhere to be found on the blog…

For more detailed implications of this AI-generated falsehood, visit AI Central. I just wanted to set the record straight here:

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Point of Order

If you are a business, and you do basically the same thing in a variety of ways, DO NOT PRETEND THAT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE PRICE IS.

We make books. I can, and will, tell you what it costs to make a book. Now, obviously the specific price will vary depending upon whether you want to make one small paperback that will spontaneously combust within 15 years or a giant tome bound in albino orca leather and stamped with pure platinum, but the average price for a basic book is what it is.

For some reason, more and more businesses seem to get off on absolutely refusing to tell you anything at all about the price of their goods and services. Which in addition to being infuriating, and a waste of time, is counterproductive, because the first thing I do when I can’t get a price estimate is to go somewhere else where I can.

Is this an instinctive response to Amazon price-shoppers? Or are they simply attempting to delay the moment of truth when the potential customer decides if the acquisition is worth it or not? I don’t know and I don’t care.

Speaking of making books, I’m very pleased to say Castalia House is making a new book. Publishing it would probably be the more apt term, as I just finished the initial edit of a new Chuck Dixon novel. And it is really good, in fact, it’s even better than those Conan novels that, in a very real, official, and legal sense, never existed except as figments of your very vivid imaginations.

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Custom Books

Castalia Bindery will be offering a new service soon to fill in the inevitable downtime in between book runs.

While we are extremely busy working on catching up to our backlog now that the bindery is fully operational, it is clear that there are going to be occasional days when we’re waiting for book blocks or leather to show up due to the vagaries of international shipment. So, we’re planning to take a page from some of the better old binderies out there and utilize that time turning nice old first edition and special edition hardcovers into custom leatherbound books.

Read more about it at the Castalia Library stack. If you’ve got an old first edition or a particular set in mind, get in touch. We’re not going to have time to do a lot of these, and they’ll have to fit in around the production runs, so first come, first served.

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