Category: Uncategorized

Please to not Epstein

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe really, really, really doesn’t want to be Epsteined in prison:

“Will you take a deal in order to go on with the rest of your life if there is no big criminal attachment — you don’t have to do any time or anything like that?” CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked McCabe in an interview.

“Absolutely not, under any circumstances,” said McCabe, who joined CNN as an analyst Aug. 23.

“No deal?” Cuomo asked.

“Absolutely not, under any circumstances,” McCabe repeated.

Epstein assumed he was either too important or beyond their reach. McCabe obviously knows better.

Conservatives never learn

The British Conservatives are about to learn the lesson that US conservatives learned in the 2016 election.

Voters who back the Brexit Party at the next election would be helping put Jeremy Corbyn in No 10, Jacob Rees-Mogg warned last night.

The Leader of the House of Commons emphatically ruled out an alliance between the Tories and Nigel Farage in a snap poll.

He also issued a clear warning of the consequences for the Tories of Brexit not happening on October 31, saying the Brexit Party would be ‘full steam ahead’.

‘I don’t think a deal works,’ Mr Rees-Mogg told a Daily Telegraph event last night. ‘If we haven’t left by October 31, the Brexit Party won’t want to do a deal with us. If we have failed, the Brexit Party is full steam ahead.’

Urging Brexit Party supporters back to the Tory fold, he warned the audience to ‘think very hard’ before voting for it.

He added: ‘If you vote for the Brexit Party at the next election it is a vote effectively for Jeremy Corbyn.’

People stuck on binary analyses never see the third option coming. They also never seem to grasp that most people prefer open and avowed enemies to unreliable and traitorous allies.

If the leaders of the Conservative Party had any brains and actually valued political power, they would do two things. First, encourage Scottish independence. The only reason Labour ever had any power in Great Britain was due to the strong inclination of the Scots toward the Left. Once the Scottish electorate is excised from the British Parliament, Labour becomes as irrelevant as the Liberal Democrats have been historically.

Second, do a deal with the Brexit Party and build up a powerful Leave majority whether Brexit has taken place or not.

The fact that the Conservative leadership refuses to do either of these perfectly obvious things demonstrates very clearly that they are not serious about any of their professed principles. Like US conservatives, they have failed to conserve anything. They fully merit their future failure.

The end of air supremacy

The Yemeni attack on Saudi Arabia may mark a turning point in the 100-year history of air war:

Saudi Arabia spent billions to protect a kingdom built on oil but could not stop the suspected Iranian drone and missile attack, exposing gaps that even America’s most advanced weaponry failed to fill.

In addition to deciding whether that firepower should be turned on Iran in retaliation, the Saudis and their American allies must now figure out how to prevent a repeat of last weekend’s attack — or worse, such as an assault on the Saudis’ export facilities in the Persian Gulf or any of the desalination plants that supply drinking water.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked Wednesday on his way to Saudi Arabia how it was possible that the kingdom could have dropped its guard, failing to stop any of the low-flying cruise missiles or armed drones that struck the Abqaiq oil processing center — the largest of its kind in the world — and the Khurais oil field. Even the best air defenses sometimes fail, he replied….

Between 2014 and 2018, the Saudis ranked as the world’s No. 1 arms importer. In that period, they accounted for 22 percent of the United States’ global arms sales, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. In recent years they have acquired some of America’s top-shelf weapons, including F-15 fighter aircraft, Apache attack helicopters and the Patriot air defense systems.

None of that made a difference last weekend in the face of an attack that exposed Saudi weaknesses that might seem obvious in retrospect.

The undeniable fact of the matter is that the US is well behind Russia and China with regards to unmanned air war due to its historical supremacy in conventional manned air warfare. Because the US has focused on defending against threats of the sort that it poses to others, neither it nor its allies are prepared for “unconventional” attacks that avoid those defenses.

This is the usual pattern of military history, wherein a long-standing advantage is circumvented by technological and tactical innovations that eliminate the utility of the advantage. Think about the way in which the German U-boat circumvented the British Navy’s control of the oceans or how Wellington’s refusal to give battle at any time and place that was not of his choosing negated the massive numerical advantage of the French forces occupying Spain.

Decades of failed predictions

At this point, “scientific” predictions might as well be coin flips given the way they so readily exchange one form of catastrophe for its opposite.

The conservative-leaning Competitive Enterprise Institute has put together a lengthy compilation of apocalyptic predictions dating back decades that did not come to pass, timed as Democratic presidential candidates and climate activists refocus attention on the issue.

The dire predictions, often repeated in the media, warned of a variety of impending disasters – famine, drought, an ice age, and even disappearing nations – if the world failed to act on climate change.

An Associated Press headline from 1989 read “Rising seas could obliterate nations: U.N. officials.” The article detailed a U.N. environmental official warning that entire nations would be eliminated if the world failed to reverse warming by 2000.

Then there were the fears that the world would experience a never-ending “cooling trend in the Northern Hemisphere.” That claim came from an “international team of specialists” cited by The New York Times in 1978.

Just years prior, Time magazine echoed other media outlets in suggesting that “another ice age” was imminent. “Telltale signs are everywhere — from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest,” the magazine warned in 1974. The Guardian similarly warned in 1974 that “Space satellites show new Ice Age coming fast.”

In 1970, The Boston Globe ran the headline, “Scientist predicts a new ice age by 21st century.” The Washington Post, for its part, published a Columbia University scientist’s claim that the world could be “as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age.”

One of the great advantages of age is that you can readily spot the liars, having been lied to by them before.

The Great Replacement: comics edition

The conservative media is finally beginning to notice that something is wrong in the state of comics:

Iron Man is dead. Captain America is all but dead, having traveled back in time to live his life out in the America he remembered. Those unhappy events occurred in Avengers Endgame, the film in which Woke Hollywood killed off and retired the two white men—top heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). And more wokeness is coming, as the producers and directors of these obscenely profitable blockbusters fashion a new non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual MCU. The normal white man will be exiled. Who better than a black bisexual woman or “married” homosexual man, after all, to save the universe!

For Marvel fans to understand what’s coming, they must also understand that Disney will soon have complete control of the MCU, sans Spiderman. Disney and Sony have ended their sui generis partnership to make five films about the webslinger, with Sony retaining total control and Spidey swinging out of the MCU, apparently for good.

That will leave the movie franchise safely in the hands of people of color and those who partake of the Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. The heterosexual white man no longer saves the world. He’s an anachronism, a throwback to white-bread world of George Reeves and Noel Neill. The MCU cannot be left out of the The Great Replacement. Whites men will still show up, of course. But the new emphasis will be women, homosexuals, and, of course, people of color.

Of course, in keeping with conservative tradition, there is no mention whatsoever of legitimate alternative comics, such as Arkhaven and Dark Legion Comics, just complaints about the state of the mainstream. In the event you’re interested in actually doing something about this, you might want to consider supporting Jon Del Arroz’s new Flying Sparks 3 campaign or picking up a copy of Alt-Hero Volume 1.

Speaking of AHv1, the omnibuses have gone out to backers in the USA. They will be going out next week to backers in Europe and elsewhere.

UPDATE: In fairness, Mr. Kersey has written about the alternatives to Marvel before.

Philosophizing in the best possible way

Pope Leo XIII explains why it is important for Christians of an intellectual bent to read The Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas.

Whoso turns his attention to the bitter strifes of these days and seeks a reason for the troubles that vex public and private life must come to the conclusion that a fruitful cause of the evils which now afflict, as well as those which threaten, us lies in this: that false conclusions concerning divine and human things, which originated in the schools of philosophy, have now crept into all the orders of the State, and have been accepted by the common consent of the masses. For, since it is in the very nature of man to follow the guide of reason in his actions, if his intellect sins at all his will soon follows; and thus it happens that false opinions, whose seat is in the understanding, influence human actions and pervert them.

Whereas, on the other hand, if men be of sound mind and take their stand on true and solid principles, there will result a vast amount of benefits for the public and private good. We do not, indeed, attribute such force and authority to philosophy as to esteem it equal to the task of combating and rooting out all errors; for, when the Christian religion was first constituted, it came upon earth to restore it to its primeval dignity by the admirable light of faith, diffused “not by persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the manifestation of spirit and of power,” so also at the present time we look above all things to the powerful help of Almighty God to bring back to a right understanding the minds of man and dispel the darkness of error.

But the natural helps with which the grace of the divine wisdom, strongly and sweetly disposing all things, has supplied the human race are neither to be despised nor neglected, chief among which is evidently the right use of philosophy. For, not in vain did God set the light of reason in the human mind; and so far is the super-added light of faith from extinguishing or lessening the power of the intelligence that it completes it rather, and by adding to its strength renders it capable of greater things.

We know that there are some who, in their overestimate of the human faculties, maintain that as soon as man’s intellect becomes subject to divine authority it falls from its native dignity, and hampered by the yoke of this species of slavery, is much retarded and hindered in its progress toward the supreme truth and excellence. Such an idea is most false and deceptive, and its sole tendency is to induce foolish and ungrateful men wilfully to repudiate the most sublime truths, and reject the divine gift of faith, from which the fountains of all good things flow out upon civil society.

For the human mind, being confined within certain limits, and those narrow enough, is exposed to many errors and is ignorant of many things; whereas the Christian faith, reposing on the authority of God, is the unfailing mistress of truth, whom whoso followeth he will be neither enmeshed in the snares of error nor tossed hither and thither on the waves of fluctuating opinion. Those, therefore, who to the study of philosophy unite obedience to the Christian faith, are philosophizing in the best possible way.

The best way back from the Jesuit Church of Reason that has replaced the traditional Roman Catholic Church is a rejection of its surrender to the world and its prince. And the intellectual foundation for this rejection and subsequent reformation will be found in the Church Fathers.

In La Nuova Chiesa di Karl Rahner, Stefano Fontana soberingly traces the genealogy of Pope Francis’s “open Church” back to Rahner, the towering radical suspected of heterodoxy under Pope Pius XII. As Fontana shows, Rahner negotiated a “surrender to the world” which is being registered in this pontificate’s signature agendas—from Communion for adulterers and the ordination of married men to the enthronement of “conscience” and the rapid abandonment of evangelization.

Historian Roberto de Mattei likewise calls Rahner the Pope’s “grandfather,” arguing that the two Jesuits are linked through a third—Carlo Cardinal Martini, leader of the St. Gallen mafia and Pope Francis’s “father.” “The agenda of Cardinal Martini, which is the same as Rahner’s, offers us the key to understanding the papacy of Pope Francis,” says de Mattei, pointing to the Cardinal’s fiery last interview calling for the autonomy of conscience and Communion for adulterers.

That’s not funny!

Jimmy O. Yang@FunnyAsianDude
As a comedian I usually side with the comedians on sensitive subjects. But this is just plain racist. Its truly disgusting. Standing up against this is just as important as supporting our Asian brothers and sisters. This man has to go.

I could not agree more. Nothing is more important than supporting our Asian brothers and sisters! We should all stand with the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

The pirate China Mike

Larry Correia chronicles the sad decline of China Mike Glyver from science fiction historian to open piracy:

A while back Richard Fox got nominated for a prestigious award for a story he wrote. Problem was, Richard is a financially successful indy author, and the snoots have a hate boner for indy authors, (snoots are all about writers having to go through proper thinking “gate keepers” first). Since Glyer is addicted to stirring up controversy, the world’s fattest vulture swooped in and started posting about Richard Fox’s nomination.

Wait… You know what? Glyer is right about one thing. Accuracy is important. Vultures are actually noble, social creatures who play an important role in the ecosystem, which is basically the opposite of Mike Glyer, so I should not have compared him to a vulture. I apologize. To vultures… Not Mike Glyer. He can fuck right off.

Problem was, Richard was already wise to Glyer’s game, and told him to keep his name out of his whore mouth, up to and including sending an official take down notice.

Good. Because fuck Mike Glyer. Every author should tell him to keep their stuff off his awful website.

At the time I didn’t really know or care who posted the story on the internet. That’s obfuscation. If Richard did post it himself, that’s up to him. When I throw out the trash, that doesn’t mean I want racoons rummaging through my garbage can. Nobody wants racoons in their trash. Now imagine Mike Glyer rooting around in your dumpster. No. Shoo, bad Glyer! BAD!

Except after seeing the email exchange, it’s worse than that. Richard posted the link to a private closed forum only readable by SFWA members (the people who would be voting for the award). Somebody (Richard says he doesn’t know who) took that private link and stuck it on Google Drive and Glyer linked to that to get clicks for his shitty public website. When Richard contacted him, rather than be a decent human being and go “Oh, my bad. Sorry.”  Glyer acted like an entitled shit and started lecturing the author he was trying to screw over about his tone and lack of civility.

It’s always amusing to see how SJWs are shocked to discover that the laws apply to them too. Ever since John “McRapey” Scalzi helpfully came up with the bright idea to make award-nominated fiction available to the voters, the SJW gatekeepers of science fiction have been distributing the award-nominated works to the public, mostly with the permission of the rights holders.

However, Richard Fox did not give his permission to have his work publicly released outside of the private SFWA forum to which I totally do not have access any longer. And while China Mike was not the only individual to provide a public link to Fox’s work, he was the only one who refused to take the link down and leave it down when requested to do so by the rights holder.

Needless to say, the usual suspects have been whining and crying about Fox’s “timing” and “motivations” despite the fact that none of that matters. The law is clear. If a rights holder tells you to take something down, it doesn’t matter why or when he tells you to do so, you either comply or you are in violation of U.S. copyright law. End of story.

On a side note, doesn’t “China Mike, space pirate” have a great ring to it?

The Land of the Mind-Controlled

The early history of mind control in the USA:

In 1951, Dulles hired a chemist to design and oversee a systematic search for the key to mind control. The man he chose, Sidney Gottlieb, was not part of the silver-spoon aristocracy from which most officers of the early CIA were recruited, but a 33-year-old Jew from an immigrant family who limped and stuttered. He also meditated, lived in a remote cabin without running water and rose before dawn to milk his goats.

Gottlieb wanted to use Detrick’s assets to propel his mind control project to new heights. He asked Dulles to negotiate an accord that would formalize the connection between the military and the CIA in this pursuit. Under the arrangement’s provisions, according to a later report, “CIA acquired the knowledge, skill, and facilities of the Army to develop biological weapons suited for CIA use.”

Taking advantage of this arrangement, Gottlieb created a hidden CIA enclave inside Camp Detrick. His handful of CIA chemists worked so closely with their comrades in the Special Operations Division that they became a single unit.

Some scientists outside the tight-knit group suspected what was happening. “Do you know what a ‘self-contained, off-the-shelf operation’ means?” one of them asked years later. “The CIA was running one in my lab. They were testing psychochemicals and running experiments in my labs and weren’t telling me.”

Gottlieb searched relentlessly for a way to blast away human minds so new ones could be implanted in their place. He tested an astonishing variety of drug combinations, often in conjunction with other torments like electroshock or sensory deprivation. In the United States, his victims were unwitting subjects at jails and hospitals, including a federal prison in Atlanta and an addiction research center in Lexington, Kentucky.

In Europe and East Asia, Gottlieb’s victims were prisoners in secret detention centers. One of those centers, built in the basement of a former villa in the German town of Kronberg, might have been the first secret CIA prison. While CIA scientists and their former Nazi comrades sat before a stone fireplace discussing the techniques of mind control, prisoners in basement cells were being prepared as subjects in brutal and sometimes fatal experiments.

These were the most gruesome experiments the U.S. government ever conducted on human beings. In one of the them, seven prisoners in Lexington, Kentucky, were given multiple doses of LSD for 77 days straight. In another, captured North Koreans were given depressant drugs, then dosed with potent stimulants and exposed to intense heat and electroshock while they were in the weakened state of transition. These experiments destroyed many minds and caused an unknown number of deaths. Many of the potions, pills and aerosols administered to victims were created at Detrick.

One of the most well-known victims of the MK-ULTRA experiments was Frank Olson. Olson was a CIA officer who had spent his entire career at Detrick and knew its deepest secrets. When he began musing about quitting the CIA, his comrades saw a security threat. Gottlieb summoned the team to a retreat and arranged for Olson to be drugged with LSD. A week later, Olson died in a plunge from a hotel window in New York. The CIA called it suicide. Olson’s family believes he was thrown from the window to prevent him from revealing what was brewing inside Camp Detrick.

A decade of intense experiments taught Gottlieb that there are indeed ways to destroy a human mind. He never, however, found a way to implant a new mind in the resulting void. The grail he sought eluded him. MK-ULTRA ended in failure in the early 1960s. “The conclusion from all these activities,” he admitted afterward, “was that it was very difficult to manipulate human behavior in this way.”

Turns out all they needed was a Like button and they could rely upon fake social pressure to do the rest.