Category: Uncategorized

NFL Week 5

Open thread for those still following. TNF down 12 percent, biggest decline to date the late double-header on CBS, which featured the Raiders vs Denver and was down 31 percent from last year.

Over just one month of player, coach, and owner protests of the flag and National Anthem, the National Football League has gone from America’s sport to the least liked of top professional and college sports, according to a new poll. From the end of August to the end of September, the favorable ratings for the NFL have dropped from 57 percent to 44 percent, and it has the highest unfavorable rating – 40 percent – of any big sport.

It does not appear to be going away. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve just been using the additional time to work on Castalia House books.

Skeptical nationalism

John Derbyshire contemplates Catalonia and California:

The great classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms opens with a sentence that any literate Chinese person can quote to you: 話說天下大勢, 分久必合, 合久必分 — “It has been said of all under Heaven that what was long divided must unite, what was long united must divide.”

As well as being a fair summary of four thousand years of Chinese history, that’s not a bad guide to history at large. Nations come together and merge; empires form then disintegrate.

Yes, there are those big historical tides ebbing and flowing. But we can form preferences related to our own time and place. Mine are nationalist, with a seasoning of skepticism.

Nationalism isn’t hard to understand. People want to live among and be governed by other people mostly like themselves, with the same language and shared history, not by foreigners in some distant city who don’t understand them.

It is of course the case that our co-ethnics may be crazy beasts — North Korea‘s a nation; Khmer Rouge Cambodia was a nation — while the foreigners in that distant city might be benign and wise, or at any rate not life-threatening. The Middle East under the Ottoman Empire was not an exemplar of peace and justice, but it doesn’t compare badly with today’s Middle East.

The great British national conservative Enoch Powell, who fifty years ago gave those eloquent warnings about the evils of mass immigration, once said that if Britain were at war he would fight for Britain, even if it was a communist dictatorship.

The Greek poet in Byron’s Don Juan, living under the Ottoman Turks, likewise looked back to the Greek tyrants of antiquity and sighed:

Our masters then

Were still, at least, our countrymen.

I’m basically on the same page with these nationalists, but with reservations. When the Vietnamese army put an end to the Khmer Rouge government by invading Cambodia, most Cambodians hailed them as liberators. Perhaps I would have, too; perhaps even Enoch Powell would have.

So there are qualifications to be made about nationalism, especially small-country nationalism or sub-nationalism. You’re not drawing from a big pool of political talent there. I have mixed occasionally with Scottish and Welsh nationalists; let’s just say I wasn’t impressed.

Sub-nationalism like Catalonia’s is also in contradiction to nationalism proper. Who’s the truer nationalist: the Spanish citizen who would fight and die for Spain, or the Catalan separatist who feels the same way about his province?

Here you’re in the zone of differences that can only finally be decided by force of arms.

Derbyshire comes out for Spain, in the end, in favor of nationalism over sub-nationalism. I would be vastly more inclined to do so if Spain would also abjure the European Union; as usual, binary thinkers can’t seem to grasp the observation that neither side is good and both sides are idiots fighting over the right to be directly subservient to the European Commission on behalf of the Catalans.

The sour joke in Britain thirty years ago was that having fought eight hundred years for their independence, the Irish had then sold it for a package of EU agricultural subsidies. That’s not altogether fair. But looking at Ireland today gives you a jaded perspective on Irish nationalism. The seminaries are full of Nigerians [ How Catholicism fell from grace in Ireland, Chicago Tribune, July 92006] the cab drivers are all Polish; and the current Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, is an open homosexual whose father was an Indian born in Bombay. For this the heroes of 1916 faced the firing squads?

MPAI is one of the sad realities of history. Regardless, Derbyshire’s most important idea is here: We can call this alliance the Natintern, the Nationalist International. I’m still waiting for someone to come up with a suitable anthem, to be called of course The Nationale.

Conservatives and culture war

As always, it is the Left that is far more attuned to all things cultural than the mainstream Right.

An “alt-right” comic book series intended to upset progressives has quickly surpassed its $25,000 fundraising goal.

Theodore Beale, aka Vox Day, said in a Periscope video that he “intended to challenge and eventually replace the SJW (short for “social justice warrior) converged comics of DC and Marvel.”

“They believe that comics is their turf, and SJWs have been moving forward, advancing for decades,” he added. “They have been methodically eradicating traditional values, they have been methodically eradicating Western civilization.”

He has said that “they know they are the true villains and the enemy in the cultural war.”

At time of writing, Beale’s fundraiser has raised over $66,000 dollars.

What, exactly, are these sacred values being erased from comic books that must be saved? Advertising smoking, pushing the concept of undocumented immigrants as dangerous criminals worthy of vigilante justice, and the promotion of the traitorous Confederate flag.

Day’s Twitter also features a swipe at Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan), Marvel’s first Muslim character to headline her own book.

“She has to go back,” he wrote, alongside an image of one of his “heroes” leading voters to the polls, and the words “Democracy: Sometimes a contact sport,” and another showing Ms. Marvel crying, with the news of Trump’s Muslim ban playing in the background.

Now, how many of the supposedly “right-wing” media figures who regularly lament and lambast the Left’s domination of culture have come out and mentioned, much less supported, what is already one of the most successful right-wing incursions into Left-controlled territory in decades.

So far, two. Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike Cernovich.

There is no way – absolutely no way – the right is going to win the cultural war with mediocre, defensive-minded “opinion leaders” of the sort we have now. Now, I assume that most conservative and right-wing media figures are simply unaware of this, but we can easily change that by letting them know about it.

A few corrections to the quoted article are necessary. First, Alt★Hero is not an “alt-right” comic book, it’s merely an anti-SJW comic book. Unlike SJWs, I am perfectly capable of distinguishing between the personal, the professional, and the political. Second, it’s not “my” fundraiser. I am merely the creator and one of the two writers. Third, Kamala Khan is not one of my “heroes” and the images to which the article are referring belong to Marvel, not me.

Anyhow, the campaign is proceeding very well. Chuck Dixon and I spoke yesterday and I think we’re going to be able to work extraordinarily well in parallel. I’m going to focus on broad scope worldbuilding in my stories and he is going to drill down deep into detailed worldbuilding in his. My role, as far as I see it, is to stay as much out of his way as possible while ensuring that everything remains consistent throughout the fictional world.

If you’re not already one of the 989 backers of Alt★Hero, I hope you’ll consider reinforcing its success by joining the campaign.

UPDATE: Where, oh where, can we have derived the concept of “undocumented immigrants being dangerous criminals worthy of vigilante justice”? If anything, we underplayed it.

An illegal immigrant in New Jersey is accused of raping a 6-year-old girl then jumping out of a second-floor window after her father walked in during the assault, police said.


The last conservative redoubt

This is one of the main reasons I have an amount of intellectual contempt for conservatives: they always, always, ALWAYS retreat to deceit, despite their professed devotion to virtue and morality, whenever the subject is race. Every single time. And usually, the first person they attempt to deceive is themselves. Consider the following debate between commenters at John C. Wright’s blog. I’m not linking to it because John has nothing to do with this and it was merely a tangent from a different discussion, it merely happens to be where I caught a conservative blatantly lying – again – about my clearly expressed opinions.

Overgrown Hobbit
Vox Day has stated that homogeneous nation states are good, and forced conglomeration of disparate groups to serve lawless powerful governments are bad. The larger the state, the more likely the tyranny, the smaller, the more likely the people have of self-determination. Even if what they want for themselves is a short fast path to self-destruction. What is the wisest end for the Spaniards? I don’t know. But on this Vox Day’s foundational errors, that race trumps culture and intelligence determines virtue, do not appear to be in play.

Bellomy
Does Vox Day think intelligence determines virtue? Ability to sustain a functioning culture, yes. Ability to understand the consequences of decisions, yes. But virtue? I am not so sure about that.

Overgrown Hobbit
What makes a people capable of sustaining a functioning culture? Back to you, sir.

Zaklog the Deplorable
I would say that a people’s average IQ is a significant factor there. Not the only one, but significant. Another important factor would be a high degree of societal trust, which is much easier to attain in homogenous societies.

Bellomy
But I’ve never seen him say intelligence=virtue. Intelligence=more elaborate rationalizing.

Scholar-at-Arms
Considering some of the criticisms he’s made on the limitations of intelligence on a personal level, I think you are right.

Zaklog the Deplorable
Yes, it is never a good sign for someone’s argument to me that they appear incapable of accurately representing their opponent’s beliefs, and on the subjects of race & IQ, most people who disagree with Vox Day appear to badly misrepresent what he says.

They reliably do, because they have to do so in order to avoid admitting the fatal weaknesses of their own positions. First, Overgrown Hobbit is demonstrably lying. I have not only never said, suggested, or implied that intelligence determines virtue, or even that it is a virtue, I have specifically stated the precise opposite.

“The fact that intelligence is not a virtue does not make it therefore fictional.”
– Vox Day, 14 September 2006

And in order to avoid giving her any wiggle room whatsoever, I will address her particular formulation. You can quote me on this: intelligence does not determine virtue. There are virtuous retards. There are profoundly evil geniuses. These things are entirely obvious to anyone who has paid even a modicum of attention to human history and human behavior. That “foundational error” simply does not exist.

Second, there are many things required to sustain a culture, and those things vary depending upon the nature of the culture. Virtue was not required to sustain the empire of the Aztecs, the conquering hordes of the Mongols, or the predatory roaming of the Arab tribes. But intelligence beyond a certain level is absolutely required to sustain a functioning culture that contains interior plumbing and electricity, among other desirable things.

Third, race does trump culture. It does not always do so on an individual basis, but it is more reliable than the Law of Supply and Demand on the macro level. This particular conservative failure is based on their stubborn determination  to rely on micro-level examples to determine the truth or falsehood of macro-societal concepts. Their opinions are not merely wrong, they are irrelevant, based as they are on inapplicable metrics, and from the scientific perspective, they are nonsensical.

Fourth, as Zaklog notes, and as I have previously observed, the argument for the Alt-Right is only strengthened by comparison with the feeble and dishonest nature of the arguments being made against it. The more they refuse to understand our case, or correctly characterize it, the more appeal it will hold for those who consider it honestly.

Fifth, note the tortuous way that Overgrown Hobbit reaches a conclusion that allows her to make a provably false statement. And finally, note that no matter how conservatives squawk, preen, posture, pose, and virtue-signal, they are still absolutely and utterly wrong about both race and immigration. Conservatism conserves nothing because it simply refuses to accept some of the less pleasant truths about the world.

Formerly “the most Republican county in America,” Orange County, California voted Democrat in 2016, after decades of immigration.

Never lead with your best shot

Who might the new Alt★Hero writer be, who will write Volumes VII, VIII, and IX when the Freestartr campaign hits the new $100k stretch goal? I think it is safe to say that it is probably not whoever you were expecting. We will also be adding a new reward later today to help ensure this happens and give Bane many sleepless nights.

Note that if you are a $15 Digital Edition Backer or higher, you will receive all NINE volumes of Alt★Hero in digital format if we reach the $100k stretch goal.

UPDATE: In addition to formally announcing Mr. Dixon as the prospective author of Alt★Hero Volumes VII, VIII, and IX, we have created a new Reward.

$1500.00
Be a Villain

This is for the opportunity to have your likeness used as the basis for a minor villain in an Alt★Hero volume. Subject to approval by Castalia House. Also includes all digital, paperback, and hardcover editions.

Liberals never learn

They never learn that when the Revolution comes, they are always the first ones lined up against the wall:

Edward Enninful started his editorship of Vogue magazine with a clutter-free desk — and soon he’ll have an empty office to match. Following the mass exodus of posh girls under Enninful’s new regime, an insider says the fashion bible’s remaining staff have been offered voluntary redundancy, as the Ghana-born stylist sweeps out ‘every last Sloaney sloth’.

When Enninful was announced as British Vogue’s first male and black editor in April, succeeding Alexandra Shulman, he is said to have told friends that his priority was to ‘get rid of the posh girls’.

He started his purge of the toffs by firing long-serving fashion director Lucinda Chambers, who aired her grievances in an incendiary interview with the fashion website Vestoj. Baronet’s daughter Emily Sheffield, the magazine’s deputy editor and Samantha Cameron’s sister, announced her exit in July. Sheffield was followed by editor-at-large Fiona Golfar, managing editor Frances Bentley, and several junior staff.

Terrified well-bred Vogue staffers said the office felt like ‘the night of the long knives’.

Poor posh girls. It’s hard to celebrate your virtuous lack of racism when you’re fired by a black man. Liberal whites never understand that blacks like Enninful simply don’t want them around any more than they want conservative whites or any other non-blacks around. In fact, they tend to have more wary respect for Asians and Hispanics, because at least the other minority groups tend to lack the delusions of racial equality and post-racial identity that afflict both white conservatives and liberals alike.

I always thought it was mildly amusing the way that the sports media always ignored the way that a team’s entire coaching staff would often go mostly black, if not all black, as soon as a black coach was hired. But then again, noticing reality is racist.

I find the entire situation to be hilarious. No one does bitchy like an entitled, middle-class British woman: One fashionista who unsuccessfully applied for the editor’s job sniffed: ‘It’s as though we entered Crufts and the cat won.’

Alt★Hero novel now available

We’re going to sell these ebooks for $5 when they come out anyhow, so if you want to be the first in line and continue pushing Alt★Hero towards its stretch goals in the meantime, you can buy the ebook version of the first novel, co-written by Jon Del Arroz and me now.

We’ve also added a $90,000 stretch goal, which will be a SECOND novel also co-written by Jon Dell Arroz. And we will have more rewards and stretch goals next week… quite possibly including some interesting cosplay options.

UPDATE: we’re going to have a big announcement tomorrow. I shall leave it to the reader to guess what it is.

The Alt★Hero troll

It appears this is the “expert” in comics who has been denigrating the Alt★Hero project, falsely claiming to know what our costs are, and engaging in a futile attempt to demoralize us and our backers while sock-puppeting under three different names, Death Ray, Vox Diabolus, and Zardoz.

“Filth are my politics! Filth is my life! That is why I cartoon for MAD magazine (Scooby Don’t, Detective Slow-On-The-Draw and others), publish my own vile comics (Deep Fried, Weapon Brown and Clarissa), and otherwise drag all that is Art down to my level–right below the CHUDs!”

No wonder he’s so angry about the mere existence of Alt★Hero. He’s not entirely without talent, but I don’t know why anyone would ever want to work with him now after seeing how unprofessional his behavior appears to have been, both here and on the campaign page.

Social justice warriors are neither well-meaning nor are they on the side of truth and beauty. It’s not hard to understand why they reliably produce so much ugliness and falsehood.

EU incoherence

Both the EU and the Spanish government are proving to be tone-deaf over the threat to their claim to democratic legitimacy.

The obvious answer to the objection of Weber and others on the running of the referendum, is to have another one agreed by all and run in strict accordance with international standards. Yet strangely, despite their complaints about the process, they do not want to have a better process. They rather do not wish people to be allowed to vote at all.

There are however no arguments that the Catalan Parliament was elected in anything but the proper manner. Its suspension by the Spanish Constitutional Court – a body on which 10 out of 12 members are political appointees – is therefore not due to any doubts about the Catalan Parliament’s legitimacy.

No, the Catalan Parliament has been suspended because the Constitutional Court fears it may be about to vote in a way that the Spanish government does not like.

Note that it has not even done this yet. Nobody knows how its members will actually vote, until they vote. The Constitutional Court is suspending a democratically elected body in case it takes a democratic vote of its members.

This makes the EU look pretty silly. It was looking pretty silly anyway. I telephoned the Cabinet today of Frans Timmermans, the EU Commissioner who told the European Parliament that Spain was entitled to use force against the Catalans and it had been proportionate. I spoke to a pleasant young man responsible for the “rule of law and fundamental rights” portfolio in the Cabinet. I got through by using my “Ambassador” title.

Here is the thing. He was genuinely shocked to hear that people thought the Commission’s support for use of force was wrong. He stated that it had not been the intention of Timmermans to say the use of force was proportionate, rather it must be proportionate. He became very agitated and refused to answer when I repeatedly questioned him as to whether he thought the use of force had in fact been proportionate. I suggested to him rather strongly that in refusing to acknowledge the disproportionate use of force, he was in effect lying. I pointed out that Timmermans had supported use of force and said “rule of law” over and over again, but scarcely mentioned human rights.

Here is the thing. It was plain that his shock was genuine, and he had no idea whatsoever of the social media reaction to Timmermans speech. I told him to search Timmermans on twitter and facebook and see for himself, and he agreed to do so. The problem is, these people live in a Brussels bubble where they interact with other Eurocrats and national diplomats, and members of the Establishment media, but have no connection at all to the citizenry of the EU.

Crying “law, law, law” is never going to prove convincing to anyone. The Nuremberg trials killed the concept of the legal justification for morality once and for all. According to the neo-liberal world order, the law rests upon the collective consent of the governed, which consent can be withdrawn at any time as per the Chinese concept of the Mandate of Heaven. Both the EU and Spain are flirting with forces that have the ability to undermine them entirely, and unfortunately, they do not seem to understand this.

For those Spaniards who are apparently very, very slow, I do not support the communists of Catalan. Unlike the Lombardian and Venetian secessionists, I don’t regard their position on independence and the EU to be even remotely coherent. But that does not make what Spain and the EU are trying to do either right or wise.

The Saker is thinking on similar lines when he concludes the Russians are more amused than anything by the situation in Catalonia, and quite reasonably so:

Catalonia is far away from Russia and the outcome of the crisis there will have no real impact on Russian national interests. But on a political level, Catalonia is highly relevant to the Russian political debates. See for yourself:

The case of Catalonia can be compared to Crimea: a local referendum, organized against the will of the central government. In contrast, when Kosovo was cut-off from Serbia in total illegality and without any kind of referendum the entire West gave this abomination a standing ovation. The Russians then issues stark warnings about the precedent this set and thereafter South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Crimea happened. Is the secession of Catalonia not the next logical step? Is there not a karmic beauty in the fact that Spain and the rest of the EU are now being hit by the very same demon they unleashed in Kosovo? There is a definite Schadenfreude for many Russians in seeing the pompous asses of EU politicians sitting on the red ants nest of separatism – let’s see how smart and “democratic” you guys truly are?! It is rather funny, in a bitter-sweet way, to see how ‘democratic’ policemen beat up peaceful demonstrators whose only “crime” was to want to cast a ballot in a box.

A lot of Russians are now saying that Russia is now the only truly democratic and free country left out there. Needless to say, the way the Madrid government handled this situation further damage the credibility of the West, the EU and the entire notion of “civilized Europe” being “democratic”.