Category: Uncategorized

A justifiable homicide

Jon Podhoretz whines about the long-overdue shuttering of a magazine that no one wanted, no one bought, never made any money, and was dedicated to the destruction of traditional America and the oppression of American Posterity.

The Weekly Standard will be no more. There is no real reason we are witnessing the magazine’s demise other than deep pettiness and a personal desire for bureaucratic revenge on the part of a penny-ante Machiavellian who works for its parent company.

There would at least be a larger meaning to the Standard’s end if it were being killed because it was hostile to Donald Trump. But I do not believe that is the case. Rather, I believe the fissures in the conservative movement and the Republican party that have opened up since Trump’s rise provided the company man with a convenient argument to make to the corporation’s owner, Philip Anschutz, that the company could perhaps harvest the Standard’s subscriber-base riches and then be done with it.

That this is an entirely hostile act is proved by the fact that he and Anschutz have refused to sell the Standard because they want to claim its circulation for another property of theirs. This is without precedent in my experience in publishing, and I’ve been a family observer of and active participant in the magazine business for half a century.

The creation of the Weekly Standard was my proudest professional moment. When Bill Kristol and I conceived the magazine at the end of 1994, our purpose was to create a publication that would help guide and keep honest the hard-charging Republican party that had scored its stunning lopsided victory over Bill Clinton’s Democrats. This putative magazine would not cheerlead for Newt Gingrich’s Republicans, but instead represent the best thinking about how to lead the country through a new conservative era. We were criticized for not being part of the team from the get-go. Indeed, after the first issue came out in September 1995, a wag at a weekly meeting in Washington chaired by Grover Norquist handed out a parody of the Standard based on the precept that we had already gone off the reservation and weren’t being properly supportive of the Gingrich era.

Note in particular how their purpose from the very start “was to create a publication that would help guide and keep honest the hard-charging Republican party.”

In other words, The Weekly Standard had precisely the same goals as Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro, which is to gatekeep the American Right and prevent it from becoming too Christian, too nationalist, and too devoted to American interests.

Good riddance.

Audiobooks and class action

Question for audiobook readers:

We now have the capability of selling audiobooks through the Arkhaven store. We could price them at the same price as a print book, throw in a free copy of the ebook, and do much better than we do on Audible. However, we know that many people on Audible simply acquire audiobooks through free credits rather than actually buying them at the inflated prices there.

So, is there any interest in buying audiobooks directly, which would consist of a series of MP3 files instead of whatever convoluted system Audible uses, or would doing so be pointless? We will still make our audiobooks available at Audioble, we simply won’t choose the exclusive option.

Please advise. One benefit will be that we can offer our audiobooks 2-4 weeks sooner than they appear on Audible. The audio quality will be identical, since the source files are the same.

UPDATE: After doing an amount of research, we’re going to target a base price of $9.99 for a normal audiobook of 6-9 hours. The maximum price will probably be on the order of $24.99 for a monster book like A Throne of Bones, which we anticipate being on the order of 36-40 hours. We will usually include a copy of the ebook with the audio book whenever possible, but keep in mind that we usually release ebooks long before we record the audiobook.

Instructions for original AH:Q backers:

If you are an original Alt-Hero:Q backer who opted out of the class action waiver in October, please email litle32000 AT yahoo DOT com to let him know that you would like to be included in the class action request for arbitration. He will get back to you with the information that is required. If you backed the campaign but did not opt out, please do not email yet, but wait for further instructions that will be provided in the next two weeks.

If you did not opt out, you can still definitely file your own request for arbitration, but that would cost you $250 and will likely prove to be unnecessary, depending upon how things develop going forward. It is our opinion that Indiegogo is not going to insist on standing by that particular Term of Use in light of the obvious alternative that would require them to pay for what could be hundreds of separate arbitrations.

Especially since we have confirmed that the woman who appears to have been primarily responsible for the deplatforming, Kerry J. Barker, left Indiegogo only weeks after Trust & Safety’s retro-cancellation of the AH:Q campaign, for reasons that are as yet undetermined.

UPDATE: Since there appears to be an amount of interest, if you’re interested in testing the audiobooks from our store, we have made two small ones available, both for $3.99. Our plan is to keep the prices low, roughly half the price of Audible, and keep the audio files DRM-free.

2020’s sacrificial lamb

Democrats are modifying the order of their state primaries in order to serve up Kamala Harris to the God-Emperor in 2020:

The nation’s most populous liberal state has moved its presidential nominating contest to early in the 2020 calendar, a shift its leaders hope will give it maximum impact on the selection of a Democratic nominee and push candidates to address progressive issues such as climate change.

Selling white Democrat disenfranchisement as a way to “address progressive issues such as climate change” that only white Democrats care about is a nice touch.

With Deval Patrick out and Cory Booker too weird to pose a real threat, Kamala’s biggest obstacle in winning the nomination is a structural one. At 86{1e4fb04660a0d5c7eb0b5578ca8a14dd083925bced8a27d4ec023ed63b264fe5} and 91{1e4fb04660a0d5c7eb0b5578ca8a14dd083925bced8a27d4ec023ed63b264fe5}, Iowa and New Hampshire are far whiter than the country as a whole, at 61{1e4fb04660a0d5c7eb0b5578ca8a14dd083925bced8a27d4ec023ed63b264fe5}, is. Not since Bill Clinton in 1992 has the eventual Democrat nominee failed to win at least one of those first two states.

If Kamala wins either one, the nomination is almost certainly hers. Nevada and South Carolina will have non-white majorities among their Democrat primary-goers so she will easily win contests #3 and #4. With the huge California prize now part of Super Tuesday–as opposed to being an irrelevant afterthought as was the case in 2016–a day that already includes Texas, where non-whites will make up three-fourths Democrat primary-goers, it’s conceivable she will have effectively clinched the nomination by the first week of March.

The Democrats desperately want to run “a woman of color” for President, but they know perfectly well that doing so would be electoral suicide. So, they’ll run her in 2020, when they know no one is going to beat an ascendant Donald Trump who will have put the Mueller probe behind him by then. Trump will also be in good form in 2020, as he will likely be stimulated in a productive manner by the replacement of the back-stabbing of the Establishment Republican House with the open opposition of the Democratic House.

The serious candidates are Beto and Garcetti, both of whom will be given dry runs to prep them for 2024. I think Beto is more serious, as Jewish influence in the Democratic Party is clearly fading.

A society of Secret Kings

Gamma World must resemble the hierarchy of Hell. Another key attribute of the Gamma male is that they cannot endure their own behavior in others.

Kanye East
Vox- I want to talk with you. That’s all- I used insults to get your attention- but I’m really concerned about your positions. I just want to talk- but you keep deleting my comments.

VD
Okay, very well, Kanye East. You said you would provide your name, address, and telephone number in order to debate. Post your full legal name, address, and telephone number here in the comments and I’ll arrange for you to get a telephone call. If you don’t want to do that, go away and stay away.

Kanye East
No- Vox- I’ll email you in a way where we can talk without the rest of the trolls attacking me.

VD
No deal, Kanye. You’re observably a cowardly little gamma boy. You were willing to troll and attack me, but you aren’t willing to endure the very behavior in which you engage yourself. You had your chance. Now you’re banned. And you’ve demonstrated to everyone that you’re nothing but talk.

This is why it’s best to simply eject Gammas from your social circles, your businesses, your organizations, and your projects as soon as they show their true nature. They simply are not compatible with the smooth functioning of any group; even Gammas can’t abide their own behavior in others.

Note the complete social dysfunctionality in the gamma’s reasoning. “I insulted you so that you would talk to me about my concerns.” So, the gamma insults someone repeatedly, harasses them, and then wonders why the target of their insults and harassment has no interest whatsoever in engaging with them? No wonder women have a hair trigger and go nuclear on men whose behavior betrays even the slightest whiff of gamma.

“I want to talk without trolls attacking me.” The hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness here is astounding. Why should the gamma be exempt from the very behavior he has modeled? What if those trolls just want to talk to him? This is why gammas constantly attempt to glom on to new groups and newly encountered high-status individuals: they don’t want to be around their own kind any more than anyone else wants to be around them.

Evil hates good

The failures hate the successful. And the gammas always, always, always hate the alphas.

If you ever wonder why I am so “harsh” and “judgmental”, why I don’t hesitate to eject people from this blog, and why I am very fast to reject potential fans and followers, watch this video. Owen is a genuinely sweet man. He’s a fundamentally good person. He is a bright light who instinctively stands up for what he believes to be true. And that is why he trusts people, why he gets bitten by the broken people he tries to help, and why it genuinely hurts him when people return evil for good.

I am not as good, or as innocent, or as merciful, as Owen. To the contrary, I will literally hunt a cripple down in his grandmother’s home and have the police drag him down to the police station, then expose his activities to his entire real-life social circle. And that’s when I’m playing nice.

So, I’m not disturbed or unsettled by evil. Its existence neither surprises nor demoralizes me. To the contrary, I am galvanized by the opportunity to exert myself against it from time to time. God gives us all different gifts, and one of mine happens to be the love of the fray and the joy of seizing up the enemy and searching for a way to defeat him.

Never forget that God hates the wicked and he loves his warriors. God punished David and refused to let him build the temple, but He never rejected him. Jesus rebuked Peter, but he also called him his rock.

Send Owen a note to encourage him, whether you believe Man walked on the Moon or not. And be of good cheer. This is the season when we celebrate the beginning of the victory, after all. Deus vult.

We all knew it would be cancelled

It’s just that we thought it would be because DC/Vertigo’s BORDER TOWN comic was converged and reprehensibly stupid. But surprise! It turns out that SJWs in the comic industry are total creeps… again.

On Sunday, a woman by the name of Cynthia Naugle sought to come forward with a story of abuse and sexual misconduct she had received in the past from an unnamed comic book creator. Naugle tweeted out a link to her personal blogspot page, wherein she recounted her story for the public. Naugle details many instances of mental abuse, sexual coercion, and sexual harassment she received from the individual in question…. While Naugle did not directly name her abuser, it was not long before members of the public were able to parse through the few identifying traits Naugle had discussed in her post to discover the identity of her alleged abuser: Eric M. Esquivel, current writer of Border Town for DC Comics.

It’s rather remarkable to observe that Arkhaven is targeted for media hit pieces and deplatforming while our competitors are literally running around sexually assaulting people without facing any similar treatment. This isn’t exactly the first contributor to DC Comics who has been accused of this sort of behavior.

Perhaps we should start advertising our comics as being “rape-free” and add a sticker noting “no women were sexually assaulted during the production of this comic book”.

We are not slaves

Still don’t see any benefit to Q? If you don’t, you simply don’t understand 4GW or why the globoprop is so focused on attacking what has become a universal symbol of resistance to their rule. This picture isn’t taken in France, by the way, but in the Netherlands.

If you are still having trouble grasping the concept, I suggest you read There Will Be War Vol. IV. Gordon Dickson’s story, “The Cloak and the Staff”, provides a useful lesson in the importance of symbols in the face of ruthless oppression.

Obamacare unconstitutional

So much for Chief Justice Roberts’s clever little interpretive construction:

A conservative federal judge in Texas on Friday ruled the Affordable Care Act “invalid” on the eve of the sign-up deadline for next year. But with appeals certain, even the Trump White House said the law will remain in place for now.

In a 55-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that last year’s tax cut bill knocked the constitutional foundation from under “Obamacare” by eliminating a penalty for not having coverage. The rest of the law cannot be separated from that provision and is therefore invalid, he wrote.

But… but… precedent! This is not who we are! You can’t turn the clock back! This decision is interesting, because one of the most important reasons for the complete failure of the Conservative movement is its philosophical refusal to ever attempt to take back ground that has been lost.

It’s also a good reminder of how the shenanigans upon which the Left so often relies serve as structural weak links that can be utilized to bring down everything that is built upon them.

At blog’s end

A 13-year blogger who is retiring his blog explains a few things to the trolls and critics. I think everyone who has run a blog for even a few months understands exactly where he is coming from:

Contribute or Shut the Heck Up
If you nitpick the mistakes of others but are unwilling to show your own work, even crappy phone photos, you are nothing. You can say you’re a professional woodworker who builds high-end pieces for clients with 40+ years of experience. But if you don’t have a website, blog or even an Instagram account, you’re just a pimply 30-year-old man-child living in your momma’s basement – until proven otherwise. Show your work – a lot – or shut up.

No One Asked for Your Advice
If you begin any comment with “You should…” you’re a blowhard. If your comment is longer than my blog entry, get your own blog. If you haven’t tried the operation/joint shown in the blog entry, your opinion is just noise.

And Stop Mansplaining
I have to add a special section on this bad habit. When a woman posts something, don’t tell her how to do it better. Don’t tell her she’s doing it wrong. Don’t offer advice or tips from your special Y-chromosome perspective. There’s a reason you don’t have many close friends who are women, and this is it.

Reading is Not Knowledge
About 23 percent of the stuff written about woodworking is untested, untrue or just misleading. So there’s a 1-in-4 chance that if you repeat something you have read but have not tried, then you are the problem. Even if you begin your sentence with “I read that….” you are not helping anything except your ego.

Look it Up
Don’t ask for information that you can find via Google. Want to know where to buy a Tite-Mark? Try typing “buy Tite-Mark” into your browser. I recommend trying at least 20 searches before leaving a question on a blog.

I Know You’re in Pain
Woodworking commenters aren’t good at masking their IP addresses. It’s easy to learn the identities of anonymous wanks with a little sleuthing. I tracked down a few of the most vile commenters on my blog and (with some additional reporting using public records) learned something interesting. Most of these people were suffering from some serious physical ailment. Many were taking painkillers and dealing with a level of pain that will make any human angry and bitter.

One thing he doesn’t mention is the idiot platform-hijackers whose comments are not welcome, but simply will not stay away because they are so desperate to try to make use of someone else’s platform rather than build their own.  I’m now utilizing a new tactic of deleting their comment but leaving it up for future reference, so that I will preserve a public record of their repeated cyberstalking for use in criminal complaints. It also has the useful feature of showing other commenters just how persistent the platform-hijackers are.

But despite the various irritants, I’ve never seriously thought about shutting down this blog, to be honest. The comments, yes, many times, but not the blog itself. That being said, it’s astonishing to me that after 15 years, the people at Blogger still have not provided a simple system for blocking specified names and text strings, and that none of the other comment systems really have either.