#Arkhaven INFOGALACTIC #Castalia House
Castalia House is publishing the 25-Year Anniversary Book of the Dorking Wanderer’s Football Club. You can see club manager Marc White introducing the book on his weekly update, and if you’re interested in the club’s 25-year record-setting history, you can back the book in one of its various editions, from inexpensive PDF to very expensive letter edition, on Kickstarter.
12 Hours ago, Russia shut down the gas pipeline to Poland and Bulgaria for refusing to pay in Rubles.
10 Hours ago, Poland AGREES to pay in Rubles
6 Hours ago, Bulgaria and Austria agree to pay in Rubles
5 Hours ago, the European Commission authorized European Countries to pay for gas in Rubles . . . .
So much for the efficacy of sanctions. Money is influence. Natural resources is power.
In more ways than one. Tucker Carlson publicly states that he was physically attacked by a demonic force:
In a just-released video interview, Tucker Carlson recounts how he suffered a bloody attack by a demon while asleep in bed – an event that he says led him to purchase and read and reread the Bible.
“It was a transformative experience,” the renowned podcast host said.
“I got attacked while I was asleep with my wife and four dogs in the bed … and mauled. Physically mauled by a demon,” Carlson said, “or by something unseen that left claw marks on my sides.”
Carlson said that now, a year and half later, the marks on his sides are still visible.
“I woke up. I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to suffocate,” he explained. “I had these terrible pains on my rib cage and on my shoulder.”
Uncertain about what had just happened, Carlson walked into the bathroom, flicked on the light, and saw that he had “four claw marks on either side, underneath my arms and on my left shoulder. And they were bleeding.”
“I’m not from a world where things like that happen. I never heard of anything like that happening before,” he emphasized, but “I knew it was spiritual immediately.”
“I’m not from a faith tradition that talks about things like that or even acknowledges their existence,” Carlson said. “I’ve never heard anybody say anything like that in my whole life.”
“The next morning, I woke up and thought, ‘That was the weirdest dream I’ve ever had.’ And then I saw blood on my sheets and realized that was not a dream at all.”
It’s always a shock for any individual to realize that the spiritual world described in the Bible isn’t a metaphor, it isn’t a conceptual model, and it isn’t an invention of Man. It’s real, it’s powerful, and it’s why Jesus Christ is absolutely necessary; there isn’t one single other religion that even begins to address the observable problem of material evil the way that Christianity does.
Which isn’t to say that all other religions are entirely false. Some of them worship demons, others worship fallen angels, and a few worship the god of this world himself.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
– Ephesians 6:12
When retreat is not an option, defeat is an inevitability:
The Ukrainian military has reportedly instructed soldiers to avoid using the term “retreat” in communication with the press, according to a reporter from RFE/RL, the US state-run foreign media network.
In an interview with Kiev’s Radio NV, on Wednesday, Vlasta Lazur shared insights gathered from recent conversations with Ukrainian troops and their commanders.
“I spoke with a soldier on the Pokrovsk front,” Lazur said. “He said, ‘We received orders to use the words ‘offensive,’ ‘victory,’ ‘moving forward,’ and ‘driving out the enemy’ when communicating with journalists. But I can’t say the word ‘retreat’ or that the enemy has breached our defenses.’”
Anyone who has even a modicum of fighting or sports experience knows that temporary retreats are always necessary, and an intrinsic element of engaging in conflict at any level. The fighter who never retreats is one who leads with his face. The general who never retreats is one who soon finds himself cut off from reinforcements and logistics, and is certain to be surrounded and forced to surrender.
We’ve already seen the Ukrainian version of the Ardennes Offensive in Kursk. Now we’re witnessing the Kiev’s regime’s mediacentric version of the 1941 Fuhrerbefehl that banned any retreat from Moscow. First tragedy, then farcical tragedy.
The media doesn’t understand even the first thing about war. When Putin was mocked for months because the Russians withdrew from Kiev, and later, from part of Kherson, what was characterized as “a humiliating setback” was nothing more than saving one’s forces and correctly prioritizing men and material over territory that couldn’t be held anyhow.
Only Gammas and women with neither sporting nor martial experience believe that it’s necessary to win every single skirmish, encounter, and battle to win the war. The reason Arthur Wellington is arguably the greatest general in history is because he faced a situation on the Peninsula where one single lost battle would have cost him the war, but he always managed to extricate his army from situations where the odds were against him.
Big Serge explains why Ukraine has already lost its war:
Ukraine’s overarching strategic concept would appear to be pulling in two directions. Verbally, Zelensky has tied the prospects for negotiations to a de-escalation of the war on Russia’s part (while excluding categorically any negotiations relevant to Russia’s own war aims), but Ukraine’s own actions – attempting to double down on both long range strikes and a ground incursion into Russia – are escalatory, as are the various demands made of NATO in the peace plan. There’s a certain measure of strategic schizophrenia here, which all stems from the fact that Ukraine’s own concept of victory is far beyond its military means. Western observers have suggested that a prerequisite for negotiations ought to be the stabilization of Ukraine’s defenses in the Donbas – which in substance means containing and freezing the conflict – but the Ukrainian effort to expand and unlock the front with the Kursk incursion runs directly contrary to this.
The result is that Ukraine is now waging war as if – as if NATO intervention can eventually be provoked, as if Russia will crack and walk away from vast territories that it already controls, and as if western assistance can provide a panacea for Ukraine’s deteriorating state on the ground. It all adds up to a blind plunge forward in the abyss, hoping that by escalating and radicalizing the conflict either Russia will break or NATO will step in. In either scenario, however, Ukraine is counting on powers external to it, trusting that NATO will provide a sort of deus ex machina that rescues Ukraine from ruination.
Ukraine stands today as a stark example of strategic dissipation. Having opted to eschew anything less than the most maximalist sort of victory – full re-attainment of the 1991 borders, NATO membership, and the total defeat of Russia – it now proceeds full speed ahead, with a material base and a gloomy picture on the ground that is utterly unmoored from its own conception of victory. The “victory plan”, such as it exists, is little more than a plea for rescue. It is a country trapped by the two myths that animate its being – on the one hand, the notion of total western military supremacy, and on the other the theory of Russia as a giant with feet of clay, primed to collapse internally from the strain of a war that it is winning…
Taken as a whole, the events of 2024 are immensely positive for Russia and frightening for Ukraine. The AFU began the year trying to weather the storm in Avdiivka. In the intervening time, the front has moved from the doorstep of Donetsk, where the AFU still held its chain of prewar fortresses, all the way to the doorstep of Pokrovsk. Cities like Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, which previously functioned as rear area operational hubs, are now frontline positions, with the latter likely to be captured by years end. Ukraine’s great gambit to unlock the front by attacking Kursk was defeated in the opening days of the operation, with AFU mechanized elements jammed up at Korenevo.
None of this is even remotely a surprise. The Western media’s coverage of the war has been execrable, ignorant, and misleading, to such an extent that even some experienced military observers were, at least for a time, misled with regards to Ukraine’s chances.
The only real surprise has been how long Ukraine’s foreign rulers have been permitted to sacrifice the people of Ukraine in the interests of Clown World. It’s truly astonishing that the hatred for Russia is apparently so great that the now-openly illegitimate Kiev regime has been able to avoid being overthrown by the Ukrainians.
But the end is coming. Probably not before the end of this year, almost certainly before the end of 2025.
I don’t really understand why obviously useless people like “newsreaders” and “presenters” are surprised that they’re eventually going to be replaced by AI. I mean, they were expensive and they never actually did anything that required any thought whatsoever anyhow.
OFF Radio Krakow in Poland has sparked outrage after firing several presenters and replacing them with artificial intelligence (AI) programmed to interview high-profile dead people using AI-generated responses.
On Oct. 22, OFF Radio Krakow launched its radical initiative featuring a simulated interview with the late poet Wieslawa Szymborska, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. The AI-hosted segment employed a computer-generated voice designed to mimic Szymborska’s tone as she “discussed” this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature following approval from the poet’s foundation.
The foundation believes the innovative presentation could help introduce the works of Szymborska to new audiences, but the response from the public and media has been largely critical. Fans and cultural advocates argue that the use of AI to impersonate deceased individuals crosses an ethical line and threatens the integrity of journalism.
Especially since so much news is taken directly from the Associated Press, it should be trivial for the average television station to replace all of its “newsreaders” and “anchors” with a quality AI system, which will also save a considerable amount of money on salaries for people who have little to offer except mellifluous voices and good hair.
In fact, this is obviously the way that UATV News is eventually going to go; we’ve already done a few modest experiments in that vein. But animation obviously isn’t the way to do it, because there is too much animation and artwork involved. It has to be something that looks like a real human newsreader and there are already some decent AI services that deliver that. If there is any interest in supporting a project like this, let us know in the comments.
John Carter points out that the mainstream narrative that claims men don’t read is false. It’s just that men don’t read what the converged and feminized mainstream publishers re publishing.
There is a close connection between the untruths that “men don’t read” and that “the right can’t create”. The left does not have some lock on literary creativity – HP Lovecraft, Robert E Howard, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Robert A Heinlein, Gene Wolfe, Larry Niven, and numerous other genre-defining titans would have been very amused to hear that “the right can’t create”.
What actually happens is that the left takes over production, distribution, and promotion channels, and then ensures that only their books are published, stocked, marketed, and given awards. There is no creativity whatsoever involved in this strategy. It is simply low animal cunning and venal social power games.
As with every other instance of the left murdering an institution and wearing it as a skinsuit, the result is the precipitous collapse of the ability of that institution to fulfill its social function, followed in short order by the collapse of its prestige as the general public starts tuning the corrupted institution out.
“Men don’t read” the insipid sermons the big publishers are selling, and “the right doesn’t create” anything the left will consider publishing. Meanwhile there is a quiet literary Renaissance happening in independent publishing, and men are reading it in droves.
He’s correct. I’m absolutely astonished how many men subscribe to the Castalia Library substack and read the serialized excerpts from THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY every single day. We usually average over 1,000 post views, which is around 50 percent of our total subscriber base, and this is not dumbed-down modern drivel either, but serious history published by the leading academics at Cambridge University in the early 20th Century.
Today’s selection, the 127th from Volume One, concerned the defeat of the barbarian usurper Maximus by the rightful Augustus, Theodosius. Just a single paragraph is much more interesting than the entire fall-winter line from Tor Books.
It would seem that emissaries of Maximus had spread disaffection among the Germans in the eastern army, but a plot to murder Theodosius was disclosed in time and the traitors were cut down in the swamps to which they had fled for refuge. The Emperor advanced to Siscia on the Save; here, despite their inferiority in numbers, his troops swam the river and charged and routed the enemy.
Furthermore, the modern descendants of yesteryear’s right-wing greats are anathema to the mainstream publishing industry. For example, I am almost certainly the closest thing the entire publishing industry has to JRR Tolkien’s landmark work in epic fantasy, and yet you will not find a single mainstream reference to Summa Elvetica, A Throne of Bones, or A Sea of Skulls in any mainstream publication devoted to modern fiction. Brandon Sanderson, Larry Correia, and George R.R. Martin are the best that they can do, and the former two have more than one foot out of the mainstream industry already.
So how do they expect men to read when they deny men what they have always enjoyed reading?
In what is arguably the least surprising news ever, the new Labour government of Great Britain is raising taxes to historic levels.
In a massive package that left Westminster stunned, Chancellor Rachel Reeves shifted the country decisively towards a European high-tax, high spending model. The £40billion scale of the tax hikes – despite Keir Starmer previously claiming there was no need to raise revenue beyond the £8billion in the Labour manifesto – was even greater than thought. It rivals 1993’s eyewatering revenue-raiser in the wake of Black Wednesday, and takes the burden on Brits to a record 38 per cent of GDP. Insisting the country had ‘voted for change’ and it is time to ‘rebuild’, Ms Reeves vowed to ‘invest, invest, invest’.
The tax burden is actually projected to rise higher than the post-WWII levels. It’s a good thing they’ve got all those Jamaican, African, and Pakistani immigrants who we’re assured are so good for the economy, or the British people would certainly be in a pickle!
These increased taxes should mean the British people will be able to continue funding their war in Ukraine, at least as long as there are still some Ukrainians left to sacrifice to the Russian war machine. Checkmate, Putin!
UPDATE: It may be worse than we thought. It may be worse than we imagined. We may be looking at an economic Hultgreen-Curie situation here.
In her 77-minute speech, Ms Reeves said she is ‘deeply proud’ to be the first woman to be Chancellor in the 900 year history of the role, and the first woman to deliver a Budget.
It shouldn’t be too hard for the weaponized autists to figure out who were the FBI’s two honeypots inserted “at a high level” into the Trump presidential campaign in 2015.
The House Judiciary Committee is examining a whistleblower report that the FBI targeted Donald Trump soon after he announced his presidential campaign in June 2015, an off-the-books operation ordered by FBI Director James B. Comey that predated the Crossfire Hurricane operation.
An FBI agent involved in the probe revealed the off-the-books criminal investigation on Tuesday in a protected disclosure sent to the committee. The whistleblower disclosure said two female FBI undercover agents infiltrated Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign at high levels and were directed to act as “honeypots” while traveling with Mr. Trump and his campaign staff on the trail.
A review of campaign photographs taken on the plane will probably be sufficient to identify them. Presumably the two honeypots would be young enough, and attractive enough, to stand out from the legitimate campaign workers. And both of them almost certainly would have had affairs with one or more of the workers.
SFWA continues to be the gift that just keeps on giving, as embracing diversity bites them in their very ample, non-binary backsides. Fandom Pulse covers SFWA’s latest scandal:
Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki was hailed as one of Africa’s rising star voices in science fiction. He had been propped up by the publishing establishment as an author from Nigeria with an “authentic take” on writing because of his background. He won a World Fantasy Award, was nominated for multiple Hugos and other awards, and was propped up as a diversity token as establishment publishing is desperate for black talent in science fiction.
Ekpeki loved to use his clout to pay for his vacations. He opened different projects on GoFundMe each time he received an award nomination organized by serial clout goblin Jason Sanford, who was all too happy to virtue signal for the African writer. One was even to raise alleged legal fees for a visa, culminating in over $15,000 of donations from sci-fi fandom.
His clout as a black short fiction author eventually landed him a position on The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association’s board as a board member at large.
SFWA has been under fire these last few months, with multiple board members stepping down amid a scandal involving a disabled employee who complained about accessibility and was ignored by the board and President Jeffe Kennedy. As SFWA records its election for a new president, a new scandal has broken out with this Nigerian board member.
On October 27th, SFWA reported they removed Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki as a board member due to multiple ethics complaints surrounding the African author. These allegations were listed by Locus Magazine, posting the full text from an author named Erin Cairns, alleging the black author stole a story from her. The full text of her complaint is 78 pages long, but it details an account starting in 2022 in which Ekpeki reached out to her allegedly to exploit her. After months of leading her on, Ekpeki allegedly asked Cairns to co-write a story with him. Cairns claims she wrote an entire story, and Ekpeki changed some of the names to sound more authentically black in the story before submitting it to a “black voices”-themed magazine.
The catch is that Ekpeki didn’t list Cairns as a co-writer but submitted it solely as his own work, according to Cairns.
On 10/27/2024, the Board met to discuss multiple ethics complaints regarding Director-at-Large Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki after hearing statements from various parties involved. Mr. Ekpeki was also given a chance to speak to the Board regarding these complaints. After due consideration, and in compliance with Article V(5)(iii) of the SFWA Bylaws, the Board voted unanimously to remove Director-at-Large Ekpeki from his position on the SFWA Board of Directors for good and sufficient cause, effective immediately.
The Board will not be answering questions on this matter to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.
Here’s the punchline: the board still hasn’t expelled Elpeki from SFWA. So they’ve got convicted pedos, unconvicted pedos who are NAMBLA members, and now plagiarists as members in good standing, to say nothing of all the wannabes who have never even written, nor published, a single SF novel… and they’re still pretending to have expelled me even though the required membership vote never took place.
No wonder publishers pay no attention to the organization.
UPDATE: This community alone is considerably larger than the active SFWA membership now. The science fiction writers of yore never should have listened to Anne McCaffrey. It’s not a coincidence that Diversity, Inclusivity, and Inclusion spells DIE.
Less than three hundred members bothered to vote for the president of the club and approximately one hundred wrote in a candidate for secretary as the one candidate who was on the ballot withdrew, not wanting to do work for the club in this environment.